Mis amigitos

I am constantly surrounded by the sound of children. I wake up to the sound of children getting ready for school and eating their breakfast, and I fall asleep to their laughter as they get ready for bed. They are the hardest to understand since they don´t understand that I need them to speak slowly and I am still learning how to speak Spanish, but they also are the source of my biggest smiles here in Paraguay.

At my house I usually dance and draw away my lunch hour with the two daughters of Ana, the niece of my host mom. The two girls, Annie who is 5, and Vivi who is 3, play with me like I am a huge doll. I can understand a good amount of what Annie says to me since she is a little older and will repeat things if I don’t understand, but Vivi will sometimes just call me stupid and get upset at me that I don’t answer her. I wonder if you can guess who my favorite is at the moment. No, I really like passing away my time with both of them.

Abrahm, my host brother, at the age of 9 is my silent friend. We don’t talk to each other much, but he likes to water the garden we built in my family’s yard together. He also enjoys playing with his sling shot. I am trying to instill the idea of not aiming at birds, but so far I have not been that affective at convincing him that it is more fun to aim at cans or bottles. He is a great kid. He works hard and goes to school everyday, which is not true for many Paraguayan children. His first communion is coming up this weekend and I hope to attend with the family.

Derlis is the neighbor boy that fills the rest of my days with constant joy. He lives at the house of my neighbor PC trainee Brenda and is the grandson of her host mom. His mom is a good friend to both Brenda and I, since she is only 22 years old, and we enjoy sitting outside with her practicing our Spanish and playing with Derlis. Her family and I like to joke that Derlis is my Paraguayan boyfriend. No worries mom, he is only 3 years old. A little too young for me, but he sure is lindo.

And now I have a new addition to my host family to announce. Maria Pabla was born on Thursday the 15th of October at a little over 3 kilos (around 7 lbs. for all of us now metric folk). She has a full head of hair and looks like she is going to grow into a beautiful little girl. She was brought home on Saturday and so far I have not heard more than a few minutes of crying. Que suerte!

And there are lots of other neighbor kids that enjoy just staring and giggling at me while I try to practice my Spanish. The joy that kids bring to my life crosses all language barriers.