The Heitritters in Paraguay

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2010-04-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

Hello to our faithful followers. We are sad to say that this will probably be our last post. Joe and I are home in Iowa and will not be returning to Paraguay. In February we were surprised to find out that I was pregnant and that we would soon have to return home. We could stay in Paraguay until I was 3 months pregnant and then we had to leave. I am due in September. We were sad to leave our community and friends but are very excited to be parents. When we left we were relieved to find out that a new volunteer would be going to our site at the end of April and would be working in health for 2 years. The new volunteer can work on the brick ovens that Joe was busy building.

The most fun for us was returning home because we only told Paul, Emma, Toni, and Jenni that we were coming back. They came to get us at the airport in Sioux Falls, Paul and Emma came with some Pizza Ranch pizza. And Lane was proudly holding a sign saying "Welcome Home Aunt Kendra and Uncle Joe". We first went to my mom's house and sat waiting for her to return from the store. She just kept asking what I was doing there. After that we went to my dad's and I had to pinch him so he knew he wasn't dreaming. Sunday morning we waited at the Heitritters' to come home from church. Steve just asked what the hell we were doing there. Laura stood in the doorway, her jaw hitting the ground. Before she even said a word she started to shed tears. Then Shega shared she was going to be an aunt. It was a lot of fun surprising our family and seeing everyone again.

Now we are starting to look for jobs, cars, and eventually a home. I am busy filling out teaching applications and hoping to find something. We are enjoying our time with family and friends. We are especially enjoying home....a washer and dryer, carpet, good food, driving, television, and the list goes on.

More Pictures from Paraguay

2010-03-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

Joe and Tom building brick ovens.

Heber and Jose

Big Jose and Little Jose with the almost finished oven.

The chimney

Another brick oven being built

The kids checking out the books.

Some students with the new books.

Teachers and kids looking at all the new books.

Familiar Faces in Unfamiliar Places

2010-03-24T14:23:00.000-07:00

The beautiful falls, I caught a rainbow!

We were in a boat like this one that went right up to the falls.

The Heitritters

This ones for you Laura

Wow. Fabulous

Finally some sun in Uruguay.

A sea lion just sleeping on the sidewalk.

Joe with the giant hand.

A building in Buenos Aires with a nice sunset.

I am sorry that this blog has taken me a while to post. Joe and I have finally started working again from a long hot summer and then vacations with Paul and Emma. It was great seeing some familiar faces. Paul was the first to arrive in the middle of February. We were so happy to spend some time with him. We started off our adventure to Buenos Aires in Argentina, for 5 days we explored the city visiting different neighborhoods. We saw a famous cemetary, ate delicious pizza, and did a ton of walking. At first we were unsure of what to see there but once we started walking around we saw all kinds of buildings and shopping centers. One avenue was called Florida Avenue and it was full of shops and people selling things on the street. Next we got on a nice passenger boat to Uruguay, I had no idea what was there but we were anxious to see. We went to the capital, Montevideo...there was not much to see there and it was a good thing we were only there for 2 nights. The last leg of our trip I was the most excited for, Punta Del Este in Uruguay. It is a beach resort city that was known for its nice beaches but we only got to experience the beach for 2 hours. It rained almost the whole time it was there, it stopped raining and the sun came out so we ran to the beach and did some body surfing in the ocean. At one beach there is a famous statue with fingers coming out of the sand. We got back to Paraguay with no trouble and went to our house for a while with Paul. We played card games and just spent some time sitting on the porch together.

After the Argentina/Uruguay adventure Paul, Joe, and I went to the capital of Asuncion to pick up Emma. At the airport Paul and I jumped up and down yelling Emma while Joe tried to hide and scare her. All four of us together went back to our community and visited the school, played cards, and walked around our site. When we went to the school we brought all the books that family, friends, and Thomas' school had sent us. The kids were so excited they began to flip through all the books. It was great to see the excitement and joy the kids had for the new books and we cannot wait to use them with the kids. From our site we went to Cuidad del Este and hopped a boat to Argentina. We went to the Iguazu Falls in Argentina, they were the most beautiful site I have ever seen. There was waterfalls everywhere, we even got a close up look at the waterfalls on a boat which got us soaking wet. I was so glad that we went to see the falls, it was something I will never forget.

Hot and Boring Days

2010-02-11T09:33:00.000-08:00

Hello family and friends! It has been a while since I last blogged but there is a reason for that, the reason is I haven't had much to blog about. January and February are pretty boring months; there is no school and its too hot to do anything. We sit on the porch in the shade with a fan on us a lot. After our Chile vacation we haven't been doing too much. We had have some commission meetings and it looks like we are going to get the materials to make brick ovens in March. School is starting a couple of weeks so we will have something to do. We are going to try and paint a World Map on the side of a school building with some of the middle school students. I have also been getting a lot of books sent from our wonderful family at home that I am very excited to use with the students. We had a "One Year in Paraguay" party with the volunteers in our group. We have about 20 people stay overnight. We played wiffle ball and other games, swam, and had a BBQ. People brought hammocks and we got extra mattresses for people. Don't worry Terry Conkwright, Tom was under control.

Right now we are most excited for Paul to come on Saturday the 13th. He leaves tomorrow, Friday, Feb 12th. We are going to go to Buenos Aires and Uruguay. After 2 weeks with Paul, Emma is going to fly down and be with us for a week and all four of us are going to Argentina to see Iguazu Falls. http://www.iguazuargentina.com/english/.
Thank you so much family for sending us packages. We are so blessed to have amazing, caring family. We will have to blog after our vacation and add a lot of pictures! We love and miss you!

More pictures!

2010-01-29T08:46:00.000-08:00

After we got soaked in champagne at New Years

All those grapes to make wine! Yum!

Colorful houses

Skinny house

Our cabin in the woods

me with an Easter Island head

We got fried at the beach!

Finally Chile Pictures....Warning There Are A Lot

2010-01-29T07:37:00.000-08:00

We went white water rafting, the water was so cold
The rapids

We hiked to this waterfall.

Us in the wilderness

Walking on the beach

The beach with the mountains in view

Valparaiso, our second spot, the city built on a hill.

The amazing fireworks, set off from 5 different places along the bay.

Beautiful view

Out for our 2 year anniversary at a resturant called The Fat Cows

With all the wine

Joe with his compelto. A hot dog, guacamole, mayo, and tomatoes. A traditional Chilean food.

The 4 of us with the city of Santiago in the background.

The Andes from the airplane

Not Chilly in Chile

2010-01-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

Chile was amazing! We had such a great time. It started off stressful....we came into Asuncion the day before we were going to leave hoping that our credit card would be in the mail. We were sadly disappointed when we had an empty mailbox. After talking with the Heitritters they wired us money from Walmart, ironically my dad was at Walmart at the same time and sent us some money as well. We were happy to have some money but very careful that we wouldn't lose our American dollars. We happily made it to the airport the next day and our flights we smoothly. We could see the Andes mountains as we got closer to Santiago. We stayed in Santiago, the capital of Chile, for a couple of days. We enjoyed seeing the city, taking the clean metro, wine tasting, and eating delicious food. We went on top of a hill to see the beautiful city. After Santiago we hopped on a bus to Valparaiso.
Valparaiso is a city built on a hill. We walked up and down the hill many times. It was interesting to see the colorful houses, some of them were very skinny, and we also got to see the port. On New Years we were in Valparaiso because we heard it has a huge party, which was true there were people everywhere. We got to see some amazing fireworks, we were up from the bay and there were fireworks right in front of us but also fireworks were being shot off from 5 other places along the bay. We took a video and will have to put it up soon. It was one of our favorite parts of the trip. When it turned 2010 we were sprayed with Champagne and hugged by random Chileans. We then went to a party in the giant plaza when a band and people dancing, it was a memorable way to welcome 2010. The rest of the time at that spot we just walked around and enjoyed the city.
I was so excited for our next stop. After 5 hours on a bus we arrived in La Serena, a city right on the beach. I couldn't want to spend some time in the sand on the Atlantic Ocean. Our hotel consisted of apartments and was right across from the beach. We spent every day at the beach enjoying the sand. We got pretty burnt and Joe is still peeling skin. We didn't care though we were so happy to be there. We went to an Archaelogical muesum that had mummies and one of the giant statues from Easter Island. Also on the trip we went a supermarket called Jumbo, it was like a Super Walmart. We were so happy to see American products (lately we get pretty excited about dumb things like that) we bought Doritos, Lays Potato Chips, Starbursts, Gummy Bears, Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper, microwave popcorn, and chips with salsa. We can't find those things in Paraguay so we stuffed our faces. After La Serena we took a bus about 7 hours back to Santiago and then went about an hour south to a nature perserve with cabins.
Next we relaxed in the valley of the Andes foothills and stayed in a cabin for a couple of nights. We hiked around, went swimming, had a campfire..with marshmellows, and went white water rafting. One day Joe and I went with a group on a hike and we went right by a water fall, it was beautiful. White water rafting was a blast, we rode some huge rapids and got pretty wet in the freezing cold water. I loved it and wouldn't mind doing it again.
Our trip ended with a 22 hour lay over in the Buenos Aires airport. It was so long! Joe and I luckily slept for about 5 hours and played many cards. We ate a lot of Doritos and drank a lot of Pepsi. We are safely back in Paraguay...back to the humidity and heat. When I came back to the Peace Corps office the credit card and debit card were in our mailbox, at least we will have them for vacation with Paul and Emma.
I cannot add pictures. I would love to but our camera broke, we are going to take it to get fixed tomorrow. Luckily our friend let us use his camera and I will try to post pictures as soon as possible. I miss you all so much and hope you are staying warm! We love you!

Its December?

2009-12-18T08:42:00.000-08:00

Our neighbor boy's 5th birthday party. He is in front with the blue plaid shirt.

Some crazy grasshoppers

Joe with all his candles, there was so many we didn't need the lights and thought the house might catch on fire.

We can't believe it is December. We see Christmas lights and trees and cannot believe our eyes. It is too hot here to be Christmas time. We have been sweating pretty consistently and it doesn't look like its going to end soon. We celebrated Joe's birthday with some cake our neighbor made and some delicious Paraguayan dish that Joe enjoys....its similar to scalloped potatoes and ham. But with mandioca, a potato like food, and some sausage.

We had camp the past two weeks with the kids but were very disappointed. We invited more than 100 kids and only about 10 came. We were sad and tried not to take it personally. The kids are just on vacation and don't want to do much. We had fun with the kids that came: we colored, read books (Thank you family), and played some games. The kids here really love duck, duck, goose but always pick me so I got pretty tired in the heat. We had another camp this week but we ended it early, it was at a school further away and there was about 5 kids. We felt bad ending it too soon but our tolerance had lowered from the week before. We bought tons of water balloons and some were sent from home, those will have to wait. This coming week we are going to celebrate Christmas in our community and prepare for Chile. We are leaving December 27 and coming back January 11. We are very excited for a little break and cannot wait to be at a beach. We are going with 2 other volunteers and it is going to be a lot of fun. I promise to post pictures.

We love and miss you all. We wish we could be home for the holidays. Though the time sure has flown by, we have almost been here a year.

Thanksgiving Party

2009-12-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

Joe and I foam hats at the Thanksgiving party. It was a lot of fun with good food.

Beautiful ruins

A statue at the Jesuit Ruins

Ruins

Amazing stone work

I'm a saint

We could go to the top of this building and look at the full view of the ruins.

We had a great time at Thanksgiving, though we would have loved to be at home eating delicious food with family. We went to party with most of the other Peace Corps volunteers in Paraguay. We got turkey, mashed potatoes, and Joe got pumpkin pie. It was a great time with volunteers. We did something I didn't think I would do on Thanksgiving, we swam a ton and got sunburnt. It is so cold at home you couldn't swim at Thanksgiving. The hotel was great, there was 3 swimming pools, one pool with a high diving board. While at the hotel we went to see Jesuit ruins. It was beautiful to see some of the history of Paraguay. Then we went to visit a friend who lives close to the ruins. We had fun but missed our families.

Now we are going to have some summer day camps with the kids and count down the days until Chile.

Thank you Aunt Barb and her women's group, we got all the school supplies and will be taking some pictures of the kids. Also thank you Aunt Nancy for the supplies and candy. We really appreciate all your packages, love, and support.

We miss you all and are very thankful for you all!

Not Much to Add But Photos

2009-11-25T16:31:00.000-08:00

Joe and a giant ant hill. Luckily these are not close to our house.

A flooded field after it rained, the sky is beautiful in the water.

Enjoying yummy Iowa sweet corn and mashed potatoes. Thanks for the seeds Heits.

Joe, the naturally cowboy

Joe and I riding horse.

We are back in Asuncion and you know what that means....more pictures! We have been trying to take a lot of pictures. Its not too easy right now because there is not much going on. Time has gone by fast, it is almost December...we have been here for almost a year. We have learned and grown a lot, this experience has definately helped us grow and mature in our marriage. We are together all the time and we will never be together this much the rest of our life. We both really enjoy the time together.

We are om Asuncion and Friday we are going to leave to go south in Paraguay. There is a volunteer Thanksgiving party, there are a lot of activities planned, a pool, and some good food. We might go see the ancient ruins so maybe we will have more pictures later. The pool will especially be nice, it was about 100 degrees today. It will be crazy to be sweating buckets during Christmas when at home there will be snow.

I don't have much else to add in words but I will add some pictures.

Toni, We are proud of you!

2009-11-13T04:35:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not blogging for a long time. Joe and I have not had much time for the Internet. When we come into town we have to print off photos for people in the community, buy food, and run other errands. Today we came in for a full day to relax while running errands and send home some Christmas gifts. We have been doing pretty well, trying to stay busy because it is a boring time now. The kids are having tests at school and then they go home so there is not much for us to do at the school. I was really sick with stomach pains this week and today I am starting to finally feel better. I wanted a nice fluffy couch, cable tv, and some ice cream. Luckily it was cooler this week and a lot of rain so I didn´t feel too bad laying around doing nothing.

Joe is getting a community group started and we are trying to get some money from the government to build brick ovens so they don´t have to cook on the ground. Soon summer vacation will start and we plan on having day camps, going to Chile, and opening the library to help kids with reading. There is not much else to blog. We will add pictures in a couple of weeks when we go to Asuncion.

I also wanted to say how proud we are of Toni, my little sister. She just graduated from Air Force boot camp in Texas. We wish we could be there but we are definately thinking and praying for her. We love you Toni and couldn´t be more prouder! You finished boot camp and have a great trek ahead of you.

Pictures and Video.....Double Viewing Pleasure

2009-10-22T17:43:00.001-07:00

Every grade had a queen, this is Raquel the queen of 3rd grade.

Joe and our neighbor boy, Brian. He likes to come over and play soccer and we taught him frisbee.

Adorable Kindergarteners in the traditional Paraguayan dress.

Me with some 7th graders, aren't they so cute?

Kids dancing.

Here are some pictures of the kids at a school program that they called the Olympics. I took pictures, sold them for a little more, and am using the money to buy books for the school. We are really excited to get more books for the kids!

Its has been a while since blogged.We have been busy and haven't had much time to get to town to use the Internet, when there is time we are busy trying to email family and catch up on how the Twins were doing. Sadly their run for the World Series ended, Joe and I thought maybe we were bad luck at home since they were doing so well while we are gone. Speaking of while we are gone we have been away from home for almost 9 months. We have been in our community for 6 months, we are a fourth of the way done. Time is going fast but yet we have a lot of work to get done. The school year will be over at the end of November. We will be spending the summer having camps with the kids, going on vacation, opening the Support Room about twice a week for the kids to come read, maybe making a world map on a wall at the school, and probably drinking a lot of water in the shade. November-February are pretty hot months here so I am sure we will not be moving around too much in the afternoon. Joe is trying to get together a group of people in the community to form a commission and try to get some brick ovens built. A lot of people cook over a wood fire on the floor. We are going to try to build some of the brick oven/stoves in the summer time as well. Its sounds like we will be keeping busy, which is good because if you know me you know I don't like to sit around on my bum too long.

Here is a link to the the video of our school we work at. Those of you that know Spanish please excuse the bad spanish speaking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujEB_Ao_Wmk

We miss you all!

The Life of a Volunteer

2009-10-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

Joe watering our garden, it looks pretty nice. Though the corn blows over when it is too windy.

Joe reading on the porch, it was cold and rainy that day.

Happily knitting.

When Joe and I are not busy working at the schools, visiting people in the community, washing clothes by hand, or working on the garden or our large yard we have a lot of down time. We have been doing pretty good on filling the down time without being bored. We don’t have a television or internet, most people have a television but we don’t want to buy one and all the programs would be in Spanish (A lot of times they play American movies with voice overs in Spanish). We brought our computer and looked into getting Internet but we would have to get a 20 foot tower on our lawn which includes a lot of wires, we decided it wasn’t worth it. I have taken up knitting, two teachers at the school taught me how to knit and I really enjoy it. I am working hard on Christmas presents right now. After that the teachers said I am going to learn to crochete. Besides knitting I have been reading or working on materials for our Support Room. Joe has been reading a lot, I think he has read about 20 books so far and shows no sign of stopping. There is a great Peace Corps library at the office. Besides reading Joe has mastered the card games on the computer….Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, and Free Cell….also he has become a professional at pinball. We are glad to have brought our computer, there is a big market of bootleg movies and we are lucky to find some in English with Spanish subtitles. Joe and I have begun running as well, we thought now would be a good time to start our healthy lifestyle, we need to get rid of that Pizza Ranch and post wedding weight. We have also enjoyed adapted to the Paraguayan lifestyle of sitting outside in the shade on the porch. We sit out there talking, watching people pass by, and many times Joe is reading and I am knitting. We sound pretty boring but it helps pass the time when there is not much else to do. We are very lucky to be together, there are many volunteers alone. I can’t imagine being here alone; I think I would go crazy. Joe and I spend a lot of time together which is great, I am sure we will never get this opportunity to spend so much time together again.

We have been doing well. The Support Room is helping many students improve their reading and giving them time to get their hands on a book. School is starting to wind down. In November the students will start testing and classes will end around Thanksgiving. It looks like we will be doing more reading and knitting in December, January, and February. During summer vacation we are going to try to have summer camps with the kids, open the Support Room two or three times a week, and go on vacation to Chile. We decided we wanted to go somewhere for our 2 year anniversary and New Years. We are planning a trip to Chile with two other volunteers and cannot wait to go. There are not many details right now, we are trying to book plane tickets and find lodging.

Thank you everyone for the updating emails! We really appreciate them. We miss you all and are praying that everyone is safe and doing well. We have been keeping Toni especially in our prayers as she is in training with the Air Force, we couldn’t be more proud. Also Happy early Birthday Lane! I can’t believe my favorite nephew is going to be 2 and I will miss out! Don’t worry I’ll be there for the 4^th birthday!

Thanks Heitritters for the Twins updates! Joe is was sitting on pins and needles last night (Tuesday) when they went into 12 innings with the Tigers.

Paraguay is going to the world cup!

2009-09-17T20:12:00.000-07:00

6th graders

5th graders by our welcome sign

At the soccer game

Soccer game again

Go Paraguay!

We needed to come into the capital, Asuncion to get packages sent from my grandma and from Aunt Sandee and Uncle Doug. We loved the children's books, crayons, and Skittles (which only lasted 2 days). The kids love the books. We decided that we would come in to get the packages while Paraguay soccer team was playing Argentina. It was a great game. Paraguay won 1-0. This game was important because if they won they would go to the World Cup. The Paraguayans went crazy, there wasn't school the next day. That was last week Wednesday, Septemember 9.

Now we are in Asuncion again, we had meetings with our Peace Corps bosses. We have to come and talk with them every 3 months to talk about what we have done and what we plan to do. It went great and we got more ideas for projects.

Not too much else going on in site. We are working in the Support Room with reading. Joe is coming twice a week to help with the older kids. I am enjoying my time working one-on-one wit the kids and hoping to help improve their reading. We still have a lot of work to do but I am glad to have some work started.

I can't believe my little sister, Toni has started basic training with the Air Force. We are both so proud of her and praying for her.

We miss you all very much!

More Pictures

2009-09-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

We finally figured out the problem with the memory card on our camera. It had a virus and we would lose all our pictures. We bought a new card and now have been taking lots of pictures. Here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately.

1st graders after washing their hands, these kids bring a smile to my heart!

Kindergarteners and Preschoolers showing their clean hands.

Joe showing the kids how to was their hands with the bottle washing station we made. They loved it!

Our very own garden that Joe worked very hard on. We even put up a fence to keep all the chickens out. We have Iowa sweet corn (Thank you Heits), watermelon, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and carrots. We can´t wait to eat our veggies.

The school garden, a little bigger than ours and ready to enjoy!

It feels like summer here though it is still winter, we can´t imagine how hot we are going to be in the middle of summer here. We have been busy and hardly have much time to relax. We have even started waking up at 5:30 in the MORNING to get in a run before we are too tired and it is too hot. We enjoy getting in some exercise. I have been working almost every day in the Support Room. I have about 5 students in the morning and 25 in the afternoon. The kids range from 1st to 5th grade. It is amazing how little the children get read to and how many books are in the school library. Most don´t have books at their house, that amazes me....especially since the Heits have their own home library. There are so many kids in the afternoon that Joe comes in to help me. It is a great project for us to do together. The kids seems to enjoy working with us too. I work one-on-one with the kids, most of them just need practice reading. I will try to take some pictures or maybe a video of my classroom, but it is not ready yet...I am still making things for the walls.
Joe has been working on health issues in the schoools. Every Wednesday he comes with flouride for the kids to have healthier teeth. We are also going to the other school in the community and working with nutrition and hand washing.
We are going to have some volunteers visiting us this weekend. It is another married couple, he is in health and she is in education. They are from Indiana and we really enjoy spending time with them. It will be great showing people around our community.
Thanks for all the updates. We really enjoy them! We love you and miss you all!

Busy, Busy

2009-08-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

I am sorry that is has been so long since we last blogged. It has been more difficult to get to the Internet. We have been busy on site. Joe has been working on his census again..after taking a month break. He needs to write a community study in Spanish by Novemeber. He is about half way done with the census. It is difficult because we need a member of the community to come with us and translate many questions into Guarani.
I have been super busy trying to get a support room started. The kindergarten room has just become vacant and I get my own classroom to work with the students that need help with reading. I am also going to go into the classrooms and do model lessons, showing the teachers how they can use reading in their rooms. I am trying to get a balanced schedule, I have 5 students in the morning and 19 in the afternoon. Wow! I have a lot of work ahead of me. I am really excited and can´t wait to start on Monday. I will be helping the students and also improving my Spanish.
The weather here has been off and on. Last week it was hot but this week it was cold. I can´t decide which one is better. It either takes 3 hours or 3 days to dry our clothes on the clothesline.
We have been bad at taking photos and we apologize. We went to the camera store and found that our memory card had a virus so we bought a new one and play to take more pictures....especially of the giant green school garden. We play to have our own garden soon. Laura sent us sweet corn seeds from Iowa and we hope they grow here. We gave a lot of the seeds to the teachers too.
We miss you all very much. Please call if you would like or keep the email updates coming....we really enjoy them. We love you all!

Home Video

2009-08-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

We made a video tour of our house and put it on YouTube. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82-F9zQ-JUk

Enjoy!

We miss you all!

Home Sweet Home for 2 years!

2009-08-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

Joe and I now have a house in Paraguay. We have been enjoying our freedom and privacy. The house we are living in has 4 rooms and a new bathroom. We are happy with the bathroom; it even has warm water in the shower (though at times it blows the breaker). Our first night here while I was taking a shower I blew the breaker 5 times, we figured out that we have to unplug the fridge and not use the stove while trying to take a warm shower. Since we moved in the days have been cold and rainy which gives us a good reason to stay inside and be lazy. We are very lucky because we got most of the furniture for our house from my community contact; she is letting us borrow it for 2 years. She gave us a bed, 2 tables with chairs, and a fridge (though we paid for a new motor).

It is great cooking for ourselves; Joe has been making most of the food. So far we made pizza, spaghetti, grilled cheese, French fries, potato soup, pancakes, and tacos. A special thanks to my parents for sending us taco seasoning and cooking spices. We have been looking through recipe books for other things to cook, there is a Peace Corps Paraguay cookbook that we use a lot because it has ingredients that we can find here.

School vacation has been extended a week because of the swine flu. It is big news here and the people are really worried about it. So we are going to use the extra week off on visiting people in our community and perfect our cooking skills. School started but then we had to leave to go back to Guarambare for 2 1/2 days of training. Most of the training was in Spanish for me and Guarani for Joe. Guarani is so difficult to pronunciate.

We were sad to miss opening night of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie but we caught it in Asuncion at the only mall that had it in English with Spanish subtitles. We really enjoyed it, though the books are never as good as the books.

We can't believe we have been here for 6 months. There are many more months to go but we are ready to get some projects started. The first couple of months was spent getting to know the community and learn more Spanish but now is the time to get started. I am going to start working with reading because there are 5th graders that don't know how to ready. I really enjoy reading and think it is very important for kids to learn so hopefully I can get something started with the teachers and working individually with the students. There are not many books in the library and students don't have any in their homes so just getting books in their hands will be great. Joe is not sure what he will try to focus on, possibly educating parents and community members about health topics.

We would love to get updates on how everyone is doing at home. Please email us.

Michael Jackson Paraguayo videos

2009-07-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

Here is Michael Jackson Paraguayo and his son at the 4th of July party.

2009-07-05T08:09:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th of July! I can't believe it is already July, we have been in Paraguay for 5 months. We are celebrating Independence Day in Asuncion. On Friday there was a party at the Embassy during the day. We got to eat delicious hot dogs, burgers, potato chips, apple pie, and many other yummy desserts. Then at night most of the Peace Corps volunteers in Paraguay went to a park that we rented. We filled our stomachs with drinks, cotton candy, and popcorn. I think we ate about 6 bags of cotton candy. There was a bonfire with marshmellows, music, and a Paraguayan Michael Jackson. He was really good and he little son even danced. We took some video and will try to get it on the blog.
Since we last blogged we got our 3 packages—one from my mom, my dad, and Grandma Heits. We were excited to get Skittles which is our favorite candy. If you ever want to send us something we will always accept Skittles.
It has been off and on cold. Usually it is warm during the day. We got hit with the cold bug; we couldn’t stop blowing our noses for days. We ate lots of oranges off the trees and are feeling much better. We have been really busy working in the schools and we are starting to work on dental health. The garden at the school is going well, there are little green veggies coming up everywhere. We got broccoli and cauliflower seeds but they don’t eat much of those here so Joe and I will have to look for recipes that include broccoli and cauliflower to make for the students. Right now winter vacation is starting, the students will have 2 weeks off of school. We are going to be using our time getting the house ready and working on Joe’s census.
We were sad to hear Michael Jackson died. It was all over the Paraguayan news and all this week we have been hearing his songs on the radio. I can’t stop singing Billy Jean or Beat It. I can remember my sister and me dancing to Michael Jackson songs on the swing set on the farm or my countless failed attempts at doing the moon walk. I vote for Justin Timberlake to be the next King of Pop. We were lucky enough to see Michael Jackson Paraguayo.
Monday winter vacation will begin at the schools, there will be 2 weeks without classes. During vacation we plan to get our house ready and work in the school garden and plant our own garden. We will also try to visit a lot of people in site because everyone wants us to visit them, there is so many people and so little time.

BOOKS!

2009-06-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot to add this on the blog until Joe mentioned it to me. I have been getting lots of emails about what I need for my classroom. I technically do not have my own classroom, I am helping the teachers and kids in the elementary school. I go classroom-to-classroom, but I mostly work with 1st-3rd graders. I will be presenting model lessons on mostly reading and math. I am trying to help the teachers form new ways or ideas of how to teach, my focus is specifically reading. Books here are expensive and so the school and the kids do not have many reading books. Many kids do not know how to read by 3rd grade and many kids older than that can read but do not comprehend what they are reading. So I think for 2 years I am going to try to share my love for reading with the kids. If you like to send us anything for the classrooms or for the kids please send books in Spanish. I am not sure how accessible they are at home. Any book in Spanish is great, even English books to teach kids Spanish because we can use them the opposite way...teaching English.
On a side note I am teaching English and during our site presentation on Friday my supervisor asked the kids to count in English, they counted perfectly to ten and said some colors. As a teacher I was so proud! The parents of some of the students have also told me how much their child enjoys English.

Busy Busy

2009-06-21T18:14:00.000-07:00

We are currently in Asuncion. We have 3 packages waiting for us at the package center,I know one has skittles...thanks Mom! The packages are only there for 30 days, after people say they get rid of them. If we didn't come now we wouldn't be able to get them the next time we came for the 4th. It is a fast trip, we left today and are coming back tomorrow morning. We had quite the experience getting here. We decided today at 9 o'clock we should try to get our packages on Monday, since it is Sunday there is no bus going through our site. We asked the people we are staying with to take us to the next site 14 km away. We got there thinking the bus was leaving at noon but really it left at 2. So we decided to wait for 2 1/2 hours. Being Norteamericanos in Paraguay we attract a lot of stares and some crazy/kind people. Today an old man came and sat on the bench with us, maybe a little too close to me, and was offering us numerous times to come eat lunch at his house. We tried politely to explain that we were not scared to go we just wanted to wait for the bus. After many times of say "Gracias pero vamos a esperar para el colectivo" (Thank you but we are going to wait for the bus) he finally understood and left us. As the bus came it was raining and I happened to pick the seat where the window leaked but we were lucky enough to get a seat..many people had to stand for the 5 hour trip. It took quite a long time to get to Asuncion but we are finally here.
We have been busy this week. Tuesday nights we are going to teach PE at the night school. This Tuesday we tried kickball but between our not so well Spanish and their little understanding of baseball we ended the game and played soccer, which they know how to play very well. Wednesday I teach English all day at the school and we also taught English at the night school. Friday we had our site presentation---my supervisor, Josefina and Joe's supervisor, Don Pedro came to our site and talked with our community about what we are here to do and how we can help them. Joe and I both had to speak too, I talked a little in Guarani which really impressed the community. Below is a picture of us by the welcome sign I made, yes I made our own welcome sign. Saturday morning Joe started his census. He has to go around the community house-to-house and ask them a series of questions. The questions are about what they use to cook and what they use to go to the bathroom. Saturday night was a party at the school called San Juan. It is a big deal. There were sack races (which I won against the kids), theatrical skits, dancing, and lots of food. Joe and I were so full of typical Paraguay food we hardly ate anything today.
This blog is getting really long and so I am going to end it. I will probably not blog until the 4th of July. We are going to come to Asuncion, there is a party at the US Embassy and the Peace Corps Volunteers are going to rent a park and party all night.
We miss you all! Especially our fathers being today is Father's Day. Happy Father's Day Dads!

Green Thumbs

2009-06-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone. I am sorry that it has been a while since we have blogged. We have been busy and haven’t had much time to come to Villarrica and use the Internet. When we do use the Internet we are trying to call our families. It has been cold here lately, when we first came and were sweating all the time we didn’t believe it got cold here. Though it is not as cold as home during the winter we are still wearing layers. We didn’t enjoy freezing at night so we bought a heater, which helps. Lately we have been busy with the school garden, preparing our house, and I am teaching English every Wednesday. The school garden is huge and we are very excited to be growing lots of vegetables for the kids. This week we are going to start working with the night school students, PE on Tuesdays and English on Wednesday. I am trying to make sure that teaching English is not all I do for two years but it is a good way to start. Joe is going to start on his census, he has to go around the community and do 50 surveys—finding out what they have in their house and if there are any projects he could start working on.

We were sad to miss my cousin Travis’ wedding. We got the invitation in the mail and were really glad they still thought of us in Paraguay. The thought of wedding cake makes my mouth water! Joe and I have been craving food from home, I guess we took Snickers and Reece’s for granted. We have been eating a ton of oranges lately because almost everyone has orange trees and right now is the season for them. We were also sad to miss out on Aunt Dode´s wedding, I am sure it was a blast!

I wanted to add some pictures but our camera is not functioning properly right now. We are trying to figure out the problem.

We miss you all tons!

Many Pictures

2009-05-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Me with the 1st grade class and teacher.

Behind us around the chalkboard is the abcs we made.

Joe helping plow the school garden

After first day of building the bathroom

The outside just about finished

Our Future Home in July!

Carpinchos at the park in Villarrica

Joe's favorite animal....carpinchos (giant rodents)

Joe and his carpinchos

Feeding Time

Joe and I are in the Asuncion right now to go to meetings at the Peace Corps office. We have been in our site for one month now and have already began some work. I have made some abc cards for 1st and 2nd grade and also clocks in 3rd grade. We reused cardboard boxes for all of the materials. I think I will become pretty good at reusing items and might take that back to me the United States. Joe has also started some work...he has worked hard on our new bathroom and also getting the school garden ready. Our school is really excited to have a school garden and made it huge so we will have a lot of work to do. Along with the garden Joe and I will be giving nutrition talks in the classrooms.

We have actually had some colder weather. It has been rainy and chilly but people have promised us it still gets colder. It wouldn't be so cold if you could get warm inside your house but it is the same inside as outside. People in our community ask us why we are cold because it gets much colder where we are from, but we also have heaters inside our houses. June and July are the cold months here, I don't think we will be washing many of our clothes because we have to do it by hand, outside, with cold water. We can't believe it is summer vacation at home when we are cold here. Congratulations Toni on graduating from high school. I am very sad that we could not be there. I also was sad to miss Lane's baptism but I really loved the pictures.

Steve and Laura we got our package! Thank you so much! We are so excited to watch High School Musical 3 for the next 2 years!

We miss you all very much.

Just a Quick Note

2009-05-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

Joe and I are in town to look for stuff to construct our new bathroom. Yesterday we worked on the yard and cleaning the inside of our future home. Joe was excited to use his machete to trim the trees. There is still more work to do but it was awesome to get started. My contact´s husband and Joe are going to be building the bathroom....lets hope they know what they are doing. We can´t get too excited about moving in the house because we have to live with host families until July. This week the teachers are on strike so there is not much for me to do. I am not sure the reason they are on strike, either they didn´t get their money or they want more. I have been studying my spanish and trying to get ideas of how to start at the school. Joe has also been trying to decide how to start, at least the bathroom will give him something to do. We do not have much other news. I just thought I would quick put something up since we had some time. We had a great time this weekend talking to family, it is always great to talk in English.

We miss you all very much!

First Week in Site!

2009-05-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! We are now official in our site and working as volunteers. We did enjoy staying in a hotel and having our independence. Right now we are living with a host family: a teacher, a librarian, a 13 year old boy, and a 9 year old boy. The 9 year old reminds us a lot of Thomas so it is fun to play with him. We enjoy living with them....we have our own room above the house with a bathroom. Houses here usually do not have 2 stories. We sit out on the balcony and looking at the stars while playing games on our new cell phones. We made our family pizza one night but they make it different here, you cook all the ingredients first and then put it in the oven for 2 minutes. The dough is already made.
The second day we were here we went to the school and they had a fiesta because the next day was Teacher´s Day. They should have that at home! :) The next two days the kids didn´t have school so we learned how to wash our laundry by hand and went to Villarrica. It takes about an hour by bus to get to Villarrica, which is where we are right now. We met up with other volunteers and explored the city. The rest of this week I plan to go to the school and Joe is going to visit the health post and find some work to do. I visited the school yesterday and observed 3rd and 5th grade. They teach a lot differently here, most of the time kids are copying off the board into their notebooks because they don´t have textbooks. But sometimes the teachers just sit there and make them copy without teaching them anything. It is going to difficult to try to get them to use a different method of teaching.
We have decided on living in the house that we need to build a bathroom. We saw some other houses but this one was the best. We will need to take some pictures of the bathroom in process.
I am not sure how often we will get to the internet but I will try to post as much as we can. We are looking into internet but we would have to put up an antenna and we don´t want the whole community to know we have a computer or internet.
I am excited to see pictures of Toni at prom so Mom and Dad send some soon!
Happy Mother´s Day on Sunday.....moms you can call us on Sunday if you want....that is reverse but if you use an international calling card it should work well.
We miss you all!

I, Kendra Heitritter solemly swear........

2009-04-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

Asuncion sunset---view from the rooftop pool

view from the rooftop pool where we laid in the sun

Joe in his element doing karoke

At the US Embassy at the black and white party

The Rural Health Group

The best cake ever!

Some great friends!

We can really clean up.

Pretty waterfall.

We are now official volunteers. Friday in the morning we went to the US Embassy....the second largest US Embassy, it is beautiful. The US Ambassador gave a speech and we took the Peace Corps oath (which is the same at the US vice president). After the ceremony we ate some snacks and got the most delicious cake I have ever had. We took many pictures and then left for the Peace Corps office. We signed a lot of papers, recieved a bank card, and cell phones. We got some very nice cell phones, nicer than the one I had at home. We relaxed that day and at night we went a pub and then to a black and white party at the US embassy with the Marines. After we went to karoke, which is one of Joe's favorite things. We were very tired at the end of the night. Today, Saturday we had some yummy breakfast of super fruit and we sat/swam at the rooftop pool. I am pretty burnt right now. Tonight we are planning on going out for Mexician food. The rest of the weekend we are not sure what we are doing. Relaxing. It is great to be in air conditioning with internet and tv. After living with a family it is great to be on our own. Tuesday we are going out to our site sometime in the afternoon. We will try to keep you posted while we are at our site but it might be more difficult unless we get internet at our house.

Emma Heitritter you looked so beautiful at prom, we hope you had fun.

We miss you all!

mailing address

2009-04-20T13:10:00.001-07:00

I changed our mailing address on here. It is the same just without the CHP part because we will no longer be there. We are welcome to packages. We might look into getting a mailing address at the big city about an hour away from us but we will see.
Grandma we got your package! THANK YOU!

One Week Left!

2009-04-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

We are coming to a turning point in our Peace Corps experience! We will get to become volunteers, we are very excited and cannot wait for our two years of service to begin. This past week I finished up my time at the school we were working with, it was interesting to see a Paraguayan classroom. We also went to the Peace Corps office and got more information about becoming volunteers. Also this week we got to participate in a couple of ultimate frisbee games. Joe and I had a great play and everyone was calling it ¨the husband-wife connection¨. But today we are very sore and tired. We are sad to leave our host family and not be around other volunteers in our group.
This coming week we will be wrapping up training. On Friday we have the official swear in ceremony at the US Embassy. It will be a great time to celebrate and dress up fancy. After swearing in we are going to spend a couple of days in Asuncion at a hotel with a swimming pool and air conditioning! We are also hoping for a fluffy bed. We will also recieve cell phones and are excited to be able to talk with family on phones instead of the internet. On Tuesday the 28th we will leave for our site and be there for the next 2 years.
Training was a great learning experience but there were also a lot of frustrations. Though we have definately progressed in our Spanish and are starting to learn some Guarani. We are ready to get out and work with the Paraguayan people.
We have recieved two packages this week on Monday. One from Aunt Dode and one from my awesome mother-in-law, which was full of some great games. I also got a letter saying that we recieved a package so hopefully we will get it tomorrow...Monday.
Uncle Doug I sent your Parguayan coins to you last Monday so hopefully you will receive them in a couple of weeks with the money still inside.
We miss you all very much! Thank you for all of your prayers, we appreciate them and couldn´t do this without the support of God, our family, and our friends!

2009-04-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

This week is Semana Santa, Easter week. In Paraguay it is a big deal, the kids had school on Saturday so that they don´t have it tomorrow, Wednesday. They also have a tradition that on Friday you cannot eat meat only chipa...which is a dry bread, people here love it but for Joe and I that we can eat some fruit instead. During Semana Santa people said they don´t do much but get together with family and rest. We don´t think we will mind resting.

After my last post Joe reminded me that I needed to post a funny conversation that happened last week. I was walking with my community contact the first day we met them and we were going to get some juice. We were talking about how thrist we were and I said ¨Tengo sed. Aloha hugo.¨ Which means I am thristy, I hope there is juice. But Aloha was not the right word, I wanted to say Ojala (oh-ha-la) which means I hope so. But I said the Hawiian greeting instead. Ironically Aloha in Guaranì means juice. So really I didn´t sound stupid, lucky for me.

OUR SITE!

2009-04-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

Joe being lazy during an afternoon napa beautiful view from one of the schools

our main school

our hopefully future home

We have just returned from visiting our future site and we are very excited. It is a small town in the district of Guairá. There are about 4,000 people...two schools, a health post, and little stores people have in their homes where you can buy food and other miscellaneous items. We found out our site on Wednesday and we both had a contact from the community come on Thursday. My contact was the librarian of the major school and Joe´s was a nurse at the health post. We enjoyed getting to know them for a couple of days and left with them on Friday morning. We had to travel for 4 hours and take 3 buses. To get to our site and in our site there is a cobbled road, which is good news for us....less dirty and if it rains we can still get to town. We stayed with my contact in a very nice house. We got to learn Spanish and Guaraní from them and we taught them English.
While on our visit we walked around the community which is very spread out and it was hot. We definately got our exercise and are looking forward to recieving bikes from the Peace Corps. We visited both schools....one school has preschool-high school and the other school has preschool-6th grade. We went to the health post and visited the nurses, where we had to explain to them that Joe was not a doctor but a volunteer to help the community better their personal health. The schools are very excited to have us and the students and teachers were very welcoming. We ate a lot of typical Paraguayan food and drank lots of terere. While in site we looked at houses we could live in on our own. For the first 3 months we live with host families on our site, we are going to try and move around to get to know our community well. We found a house we loved with 4 rooms!!!! but it does not have a bathroom. We talked to other people and decided it would be worth building a bathroom and then we don´t have to pay rent for two years. What a good deal.
When it was time for us to leave we were sad to go and couldn´t wait to go back. We are so excited to start our work in Paraguay and hope to have lots of visitors from the US at our own house!

we survived the week apart

2009-03-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

Our reading club on the last time.

Joe and our host sister Lorena.

Lorena and our neighbor kid, Andrés

Andrés and Lorena....we spend a lot of our nights playing cards with them.

We survived our week apart was not as bad as we thought it would be though we do not want to do it again. I spent my time in the schools giving charlas about nutritution and brushing your teeth. Joe worked in the schools as well talking about self esteem and built a fogon....an outdoor stove. It has been really hot here and I cannot wait for a little cooler weather. On the way back home from my long field practice we stopped at a resturant with some delicious American hamburgers and french fries, though I spent a lot of my money on the amazing ice cream.

Yesterday we went to Asuncion and went to a movie, Slumdog Millionare. It was an awesome movie and we were excited it was in English wish Spanish Today..Sunday was my last reading club with the kids in my neighborhood. We had to have six meetings and our last meeting we played games, ate cookies, and gave them certificates and books.

Wednesday we find out our site...we are very excited. Friday we will leave to visit our future site from Friday until Wednesday. Please pray for us as we meet our new community.

We miss you all!

A Special Post

2009-03-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Happy Golden Birthday Toni! I am sad that I cannot see my little sister on her 18th birthday! Talking on the static skype was the best I could do. I can´t believe how old she is. There are a lot of family and friends birthdays that we have missed this month. So happy birthday to all!

We can´t believe it is already the middle of March. This week we had site interviews on what we want from our site. Next week we will be on Long Field Practice from Monday until Friday. We will be visiting other volunteers....this is the longest time we will be apart from each other since being married. The week after that we will find out our site...April 1st. We can`t wait to find out. The time in training has been going fast and we are really enjoying learning the language and being with our host family.

We received a package from my mom this week. We were so thrilled to receive our favorite candy.....Skittles! We are rationing them out. We miss you all!

Encouraging Week

2009-03-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

This week was a very encouraging week. We recieved a lot of positive words from people and it has really lifted our spirits. We had language interviews and we both are at the level you need to pass in order to be a volunteer, though we both want to keep getting better in our language. Over the past couple of weeks we have really adapted to the culture and picked up on the language. We are getting used to saying ¨adios¨to people as we pass each other instead of ¨hi¨. Joe and I have really enjoyed getting to know our host family and playing with the neighborhood kids.

Tuesday we went to the country and cooked with the people. We used a lot of soy and it was a lot work. We even make soy milk. Wednesday we learned tradition Paraguayan songs and dance. It was interesting to see. Friday I had to give a ¨charla¨ (a little 30 minute workshop) with another volunteer on using education games in the classroom. It was in Spanish and I was very nervous, but it went well. All in all we had a very busy week and are very tired.

It has been cooler here which is nice and we adjusted to the daylights savings time and it gets dark around 7 o´clock so we go to bed on time. Its nice we are only 1 hour away from home instead of 3.

We are anticipating packages from family members. It has been 3 weeks so far....we are hoping no one ate our candy or stole our High School Muscial 3 movie.

We miss you all!!!!

Pictures

2009-03-07T13:47:00.000-08:00

A lot of family members have been asking for pictures so here they are. I am sorry it has taken so long. We are enjoying are time here but lately it has been tremendously hot...in the 100s every day. They say it will cool off soon and we will be cold but I don´t believe them yet! We are anticipating the time change because we will only be an hour different from home instead of 3 hours. We can´t believe we have been here for a month. April 1 we will find out where our site will be.....where we will be leaving and working for 2 years. We are hoping for running water and electricity but we will be rural.....aka in the countryside which is more lindo (pretty).

We spend a lot of our time here doing homework and playing cards with the kids.

We also eat at the table behind Joe. This is the little patio between the house and our room.

This is our bedroom. We enjoy the bigger bed than what we had at home besides at Grandma Heit´s house.

This is our bathroom. The floor gets really wet because we don´t have a shower curtain.

This is the beach in Villeta that we were so excited to go swimming at.
Can you see why we didn`t want to swim here... I can´t get the question mark to work!

We can study outside at our training center.

Here is our host families´house. We live in the back.

Me with my friend Amanda. It was very bright but

the beach was nice and the river wasn´t too bad.

Melting in Paraguay!

2009-03-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

It is very hot here. Probably around 90-100 degrees every day. I didn´t think I would be sweating this much in the month of March. They say it is suppose to cool down by April, which will be nice! We are still adjusting to the language, culture, and food. The meat here is nothing like Iowa meat. We eat a lot of chicken.

Lately we have been really busy with language classes, visiting other volunteers, and getting to know Paraguay. The past weekend we went to visit a volunteer couple. It was a great time talking and learning about being a volunteer. We played cards and learned how to play Paraguayan cards. Lately we have been playing lots of cards with our host sister and neighbor boy every night we have to play Uno, Go Fish, or Memory. It has been a great tool in learning spanish.

We have both been pretty health. Joe got over his sickness fast and have been feeling well. We sometimes stomach pains but it is just adjusting to the food.

This weekend we went to Asuncion and show the historic buildings. We went to the Governor´s palace, it kind of looked like the White House. There were guards but no fence. We could walk very close.....nothing like the US. It was great to see the historic part of Paraguay. On Sunday we had to go visit Joe´s ¨lunch mom¨. For training Joe needs to go to a different community and eats lunch with another family. They wanted to meet me so they could ¨know¨me. The campo (country) is a lot different than the town we live in. It is more tranquilo (calm and relaxing).

Lots of times we crave food from home, especially Pizza Ranch pizza, which would be difficult for people to send to us. We got to eat McDonalds but it was not the same as home. We will try to take some pictures and upload them on our blog. Sorry we have not had the opportunity yet. We miss you a lot.

Lots of Language Training

2009-02-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

I am trying to blog once a week right now since we have internet access. Currently in Paraguay it is very hot and has been raining about every day, which is nice to cool us down a little. On Sunday we went to a "beach" with other Peace Corps trainees, we were so excited for a day to relax and sit on the beach. Boy were we wrong. The beach was dirty and the only water was a river, which did not look too clean either. We still did enjoy the day out of our town by drinking some Coke and eating empanadas (kind of like a hot pocket).
This week we have a lot of language training (4 hours a day) and training in our jobs. Today I met with the teachers in the school my group will be working with during training. I will be with another volunteer in the kindergarten classroom, I am very excited!
On Saturday we will be heading south to visit a married couple that are current volunteers. They are both working in our specific jobs. We will be at their site from Saturday to Tuesday. It will be great to see where other volunteers are working.
I posted our address at the bottom of the blogsite too. I hope everyone is doing well!

2009-02-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

Mailing address:
Joe and Kendra Heitritter PCT
Cuerpo de Paz, CHP
162 Chaco Boreal c/Mcal Lopez
Asuncion 1580, Paraguay

Please don´t send packages over 5 lbs. If they are over 5 lbs it will be a long process for us to pick it up or we may not even get it.

Hola de Paraguay!

2009-02-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

We are finally in Paraguay and it is very hot. We are currently in a internet cafe trying to call home and update emails. I will give you the breakdown of the past couple of days. After sad goodbyes at the Omaha airport on Wednesday we boarded our plane and flew to Miami. There we met other volunteers...there are 31 people total. Most are in Joe´s group of Health and Sanitation. There are 8 volunteers in my group. We flew out late Thursday night and flew through the night. In the morning we landed in Sao Paulo, Brazil. There we quickly boarded our plane to Paraguay. Friday we went to the CHP...Peace Corps training center and started to ready for training. We met our host family that day. We have a mom...Zeneida, dad....Jose, a 16 year old sister..Maria and 6 year old sister Lorena. Lorena likes to watch us and laugh at my bad Spanish. Today is Saturday we had language training in the morning and took naps this afternoon.

We enjoy spending time with the other volunteers. It is very hot here but I do not miss the snow. It rained yesterday so that cooled us off. There are mosquitos. We live in town close to the Peace Corps training center. My training for education will be there but Joe will have to walk to the center and get a ride from the language teacher. Joe is not alone there is another married Peace Corps couple that are in the same jobs as us. The lady that is my teacher for education is from Southeast Iowa..it is great to have another Iowan here!

The hardest part so far is the communication. I cannot speak Spanish as well as Joe but we spend many hours a day studying language. Guarani is going to be interesting to learn.

Ready For Warmer Weather

2009-01-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

Hello family and friends. I am sorry it has been a while since I have last posted. Joe and I have been really busy working, moving, and trying to get everything done before we leave. We leave exactly two weeks from today, we are ready for warmer climates! I can't believe how fast it went.

We will be leaving from Omaha February 3 at 11 AM and fly to Miami. We will be in Miami for one day and leave February 4 for Paraguay.

We are very excited and cannot wait to begin.We want to thank everyone for their prayers and words of encouragement.

Our First Post

2008-12-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

We just created this blog so that we can update our family and friends of our adventures in Paraguay. Right now we are counting down the days until we leave....58. We are very eager to become Peace Corps volunteers. February cannot come any sooner.

This is all we know about our duties so far:

-Joe will be a Rural Health and Sanitation Extensionist.

-Kendra will be working in the schools as a Early Elementary Education Advisor.

-We will have to learn two languages: Spanish and Guarani.

-February 2 we leave for Miami where we meet more volunteers going to Paraguay. From Miami we will travel to Paraguay. For the first three months we will be training and living with a host family. Training includes language learning, safety procedures, cultural lessons, and technical skills needed for our jobs. After training we will be sworn in as volunteers. We will most likely live in a rural area where we will be for two years.

We will try to keep you posted as much as possible!