BOOKS!

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

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

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!