Home Video

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!

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

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

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!

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!