Some differences:

Discutir = argue, not discuss.
Asistir = to attend, not assist.
Atender = to assist, not attend.
Acostar = to lie down, not accost.

If you want to call a dog, you snap at it. If you want it to go away, you kiss at it.

When you want someone to come to you, you wave at them with your palm down, fingers waving towards you. It looks *a lot* like the American way of shooing someone.

Even when the air feels cool, I still sweat like it’s 90 degeres.

My First Week:

Today I befriended a puppy. The neighbors found him on their doorstep and then told Jason to watch it. I named him Chico because here chico means boy, and it also means “small”. He is indeed very small. I’d say he’s “chiquitito” (really small), but it’s too long for a name. I don’t know what the neighbors will call him.

Right now I’m sitting in a delicious hammock. They tell me it’s a Paraguayan variety that is more swinging-blanket-chair than swinging-blanket-bed. It’s quite cozy, like a big hug.

It’s been an interesting week. I have not been the friendly person I usually am, and I don’t like the way it makes me feel. It’s not that I don’t want to be, but it’s really hard to when I can’t understand anyone. Well, I suppose that’s not true. I can understand about half. What’s frustrating is when I’m following a conversation pretty well and then suddenly my ears forget how to work and I can’t pick out anything anymore. It’s like I’m in linguistic limbo – I understand enough not to be able to get away with appearing oblivious but not enough to really know what’s going on all the time. They know I speak Spanish; the first day I was here, I was presented to the church and I said a few words in Spanish. They all say “Oh, your Spanish is very good.” And then I get nothing.

Today has been a good day, though, finally. Jason, the teacher I’m replacing, had to go downtown today, so I took his classes alone. It wasn’t much…in most of the classes we watched Babar. But I guess because I was alone I had to step out. Also, I think without realizing it, I began to accept the fact that I can’t understand everything and I would tell people when we were talking, “Sorry, I didn’t catch any of that. Can you say it slower or differently?” The best was in one of the classes when they were all talking to me at once about a cell phone I confiscated. Finally I counted to 3 until they were quiet and said “Because I can’t figure out why I have this phone with all of you shouting at me, I’ll give it to your teacher and let her sort it out.” I don’t *have* to understand the kids if I don’t want to.

To recap, my flight was fine. I had two seats to myself so I slept a little better than I have in the past. I thanked God several times for that. My luggage also made it all the way to Asunción with me, which is possibly a rare occasion, and for that I am also thankful.

The first night I was here we had youth Bible study and then a Saturday night service and ate some delicious empanadas for dinner (dinner is around 8 or 8:30 here). The time changed this weekend, so we are now 1 hour ahead of the east coast. When it’s 5pm here (like now), it’s 4pm at home. Soon it will be 3pm at home. Keep that in mind for future skyping. On Sunday Oscar introduced me to the church (though most of them knew me already) and prayed over me. We had an asado (barbecue) for lunch and a bunch of the youth came over for that. It was a *really* nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon. It also involved a mansion down the road from here, but I’ll probably talk about that more some other time.

Today was Olimpiadas at school. The kids between pre-K and 6th grade were split into two teams, Blanco (white) and Verde (green), which I am pretty sure are the school colors. They played soccer, handball, tug-of-war, and other competitions. While I left early, I am pretty sure Verde came away with the trophy this year, which is nice because Blanco has won 4 of the 5 past Olimpiadas. (photos)

Karen made empanadas (baked, not fried) today and I helped. She’s waaay better at making the pretty designs than I am, but I bet money that they taste the same.

Later I’ll post about some observations I’ve made regarding things that I’m certain will trip me up more than once.

Hasta luego!
-j

When we were in the air, this bottle looked normal. When we landed, it looked like this.

I’m in the airport again. Yep, buying my internet access along with exorbitantly priced food. Can you believe that a Nathan’s hot dog meal is $8? FOR A HOT DOG AND SOME FRIES! Ridiculous. Fortunately they are the second best hot dog I have ever had.

When I left Richmond this morning it was raining. I could be cute and say the city was sad to see me go (I did almost cry when I hugged my dad – Mom couldn’t even go to the airport because she would have lost it). Really it was just that the air was too saturated with water vapor and it just had to release it.

It did look pretty depressing for a while, all gray and droopy. As we entered the clouds, I began to gain excitement at the anticipation of bursting through the cover into the sky. Then I thought it drew a really good illustration.

We usually associate sorrow, suffering, depression with rainy days. I think it might even be scientific fact or something. That’s usually where the association ends, though. How short-sighted we are! Yes, sometimes we go through periods where all we see causes us sorrow or suffering. Things are generally pretty clear, though partly hidden for lack of direct light. We don’t even take the time to consider what life is like above the clouds. Going *through* clouds is even worse because you can’t see a thing. I always get a tinge of fear that some other plane has a heading that we are in and we’ll collide. Once you pass through into the breathtaking brilliance of blue skies, you look down and instead of seeing the depressing world, you see a soft, comfortable bed that you can rest on.

It’s all about perspective.

-j

You pay large sums of money to airlines to wait in an airport for hours to sit on a plane that is too small next to someone that is too big (the irony about that statement is that *I* am usually that person). Then once you’re on the plane you have to pay $2 for a can – a 12 oz can – of warm soda. To top it all off you have to pay $8 for internet access while you wait?! Come on, Commercialism!

It costs a small airport *maybe* $500 to set up a system that would allow any number of people to connect to the internet. I’ll be generous and say that, for example, Richmond spent $5000 on a network that would allow its patrons to be wired. Richmond is one of the few airports I’ve been in that offers free wifi, I might add. You’d think the small airports would be the ones to charge. But no, it’s the large ones. La Guardia, JFK, Atlanta, they all charge you. In addition to charging, they don’t even use the same system to connect. At La Guardia it’s the Boingo network, JFK is T-Mobile. At least Atlanta has several options to choose from.

Your minimum cost is $5 an hour. On Boingo, you can get a day for $8. The only problem is I don’t know how to set it up for a day. I bought an hour the first time (oh, you also have to install software that starts automatically and *doesn’t* have a quit button), but now I want to buy a day because I’m in Atlanta for a while, only I can’t figure out how to upgrade. I’m afraid if I spend slightly more than an hour, it’ll charge me for two.

Of course, the easy way to avoid this is to get an air card that I can connect to my cell phone bill. If I want to spend over $100 a month, that is.

Look around you. Do you see all that air? Looks free enough, right? Then why is it so expensive to use?!

-j