Hola! All is well here in Paraguay! I´ve been very busy in my training classes everyday, except Sunday´s, so haven´t had much time to stop by the internet cafe, Here are a few quick updates…
The food: We eat a ton of yucca, which is called mandioca here. Also, empanadas and milanesa (chicken fried steak) are very popular. The food here contains a ton of sugar and salt. People say that I drink my coffee with a lot of sugar in the US, but they have obviously not tasted Paraguayan coffee. They seriously put about double the amount that I do!! I did have a funny story that happened a couple nights ago. I came home from training and was sitting at the table with my host grandma. Usually my host mom makes me a Paraguayan drink when I get home, but my grandma made me a drink since the mom wasn´t home. It was really really gross, but I pretended to like this new Paraguayan drink to please my grandma, who was earnestly watching me drink it. About an hour later when my host mom arrived and poured herself some of the drink, it turned out that it was made with very expired milk… and guess who had just finished drinking a HUGE mug of it? Luckily, I did not get sick, and can now laugh about this experience.
My shower: The bathroom situation here has been quite an adjustment. There is only 1 bathroom in the whole house, for all 7 of us that live there, plus the endless guests that are always over. The showers here have no shower curtain, so I flood the bathroom every morning. They have a mop in the shower so you can push all the water into the drain when you´re done showering. Also, the hot water is hooked up through the electricity in most of Paraguay. So you have to turn on the water, then the switch. If you try to turn off the water before turning off the electricity, you will get shocked!!!! I am terrified that this will happen to me everyday, and have been very careful. At least I have hot water here 🙂
Tomorrow I will be going on a day-trip to Asuncion for a project assignment. We were each assigned partners and 3 places in Asuncion to go, before meeting at the Peace Corps office tomorrow afternoon. Ken and I will be visiting a development agency, a museum called Cabildo, and a Paraguayan restaurant called Lido Bar. It should be an exciting day, since we finally get to be in the city!
Next week, we will be visiting other Peace Corps volunteers at their sights. I will find out where I will be visiting later this week, and have to get there on my own by Monday before dark. I will get to spend 3 days experiencing hands on business development work, within a specific community. I´m really looking forward to that as well!
My guarani language classes are going very well. I can now introduce myself, what I do, where I´m from, describe where I live, ask basic questions, and describe other people´s backgrounds. Here´s a little taste of introducing myself in guarani:
Che cherera Julie. Che aspirante cuerpo de pazpegua. Ambo apo negocios pe. Avya Paraguaipe.
Well it is getting dark here, so I need to head home. Hope to hear from you all soon!
Yours Truly, Julie G
YoursTrulyJulieG 
What does the father do for a living? Does the mother work? Tell us more how involved the grandparents are with the family. How are you getting along with the family members? Do you go out on your own? Nothing going on in Dallas.It’s just hot. DAD
Hey Dad! The father drives tour busses to Argentina and Chile, so he is gone most of the time for work. The mom stays home with the kids all day. There´s tons of family members coming in and out of the house all the time… grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. I can´t really go out on my own much because we get out of class when it´s almost dark outside. There´s a lot of superstitions here about being out after dark, so we are supposed to stay home with the family. I´m getting along great with everyone! The kids really like me because I taught them a cool coin trick. My host mom told me that they ask her about 5 times per day what time I will come home. I learned the other day that my host mom got married when she was only 16!!!
Also, HAPPY FATHER´S DAY Dad! The internet cafes here usually aren´t open here on Sunday´s so one day early. It´s father´s day tomorrow in Paraguay also!
Thank you for the father’s day greeting, Julie. We had a nice father’s day at the house and Karen prepared a fantastic meal. Jeff alone ate 10 potstickers. I made pisco sour’s in your honor. It has weird ingredients…tons of sugar , egg whites, and bitters. Your siblings gave me the movie “Hangover 2 ” as a gift. Stacey leaves for Phoenix for the rest of the summer. Stay healthy and happy, love DAD
Julie, I have written u several letters & I didn’t know if u had gotten them. Last night when I showed Stacey how I am writing them she said did u push post comment. NO, I didn’t!!! SO that is why you haven’t heard from me. We had a good Fathers Day at Karen & u r Dads. It was beautiful as always and we had fun time, but missed u. Love u r blog. You write everything that we want to know. We are all interested in your trip and what u do. If I talk to Stacey she tells os some of the thing what u are doing!! Tell us more about the other volenteers that u are with. We leave this Sat. June23rd for our trip to Italy and cruise, we will begone 2 weeks so I will catch up on u r blog when I get home. Love you so much, Honey and Coach
Hi Honey and Coach! So glad to hear from you! Hope you have a fun trip to Italy 🙂