Asuncion and Caraguatay

Asuncion is a really nice city here's what happened dung our trip:

First we took a bus into Asuncion, it's really hard to say where the country ends and the city begins, its not really a city like you or I would think, it actually reminds me of like ocean parkway; no tall buildings at least not where we were. So that was fine, the first place we went was Terminal Ominbus, where you ca get buses to other cities or to other countries, for a lot of Guarani but the cost is actually pretty low, like $110 to take a bus one way to Chile, which is pretty cool. Then we were told that we should take the 51 to our next place and that this buss would go all the way along Ave. Rep. Argentina, which it doesn't. So we asked this woman who told us to get off and that we would just have to walk 2 blocks to find the place we were looking for. Well we got off the bus and asked around and ended up having to walk 10 blocks. We did finally find it a company called Fundacion Moises Bertoni, they do sustainable development and basically tack care of 2 mature reserves in Paraguay, and are trying to fight the major deforestation going on in Paraguay. The last place was a really big super market, that was super expensive. After this we took bus 31 and our teacher told us to get off when we saw a church and a cemetery. So we did and walked around the cemetery for a while it was cool, but really creepy. It was raining but i did take a few pictures of the cemetery.






My partner and I were walking in separate places, and I found a mausoleum where the door was open, and one of the shelves with a casket on it had fallen and the casket was broken and open, boy was that creepy! So then we left the cemetery and asked some people where the street we needed was and they pointed us in the wrong direction (we ended up waling all the way back to were we got on the bus and had to get on it again). We finally got to the Cuerpo de Paz headquarters just on time.


This past weekend the trainees all went visit a real volunteer, to get a chance to chat with someone who had been through this, and see where they were and what sort of things they were doing with their service. I was at a site in Fulgencio Yegros, which I think is between Ca'acupe and Caraguatay.



So this is Carla's house, she lives on the ruta, which is interesting for a "rural" health volunteer, but I really liked the different dynamic of people she was able to work with because of that. It was raining very hard (which it sounds like its going to do soon again) so I wan;t able to take pictures on the way. I had my first mate when I got there with was really hot, and burnt my lip, but thats ok, it was really good. Carla's friend came over later in the afternoon, and we all made bread, which was great, and much then most of the bread I've had here. On monday we went to the Basilica of Ca'acupe, which was very beautiful, and had some awesome stained glass work. We visited with some neighbors, and sat in on a reunion for the health post, which is like a meeting, they are trying to raise money to expand so that they have room for a dentist, and on tuesday we went to Caraguatay, to the raido station that she does with three other volunteers. All in all a really great fun weekend, very informative, and is a jumping off point for me to know what I want out of my service. Aside from the fact that Carla was just really chill and I'd like to hand out again.

Here are some more pictures not all from this weekend though:



This was a really sweet sunset a few days ago, taken from my front yard



We had a really great lighting storm last week, the clouds here are so cool so sorry in advance, there will probably be lots of cloud pictures for the next 2 years.



This is from the side of my house, its the neighbors mango tree





And finally this is my sister Fátima, she's a really great kid, I'm working on the rest of my family, maybe I'll have pictures of them next week.







Oh and a freaking gigantic bug from Carlas yard, her hand is in the photo for reference.

This all for now, language is coming along, I think were going to start Guarani in a week or two which is great because I feel like I need all the time I can get with that.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would be great if possible to send me music, it's weird, listening to the radio here, you only get latin music, Paraguayan polka, and Lady Gaga.