Mis Viajes

This past week I traveled to both the capital city of Paraguay and to a small pueblo out in the center of Paraguay. Overall, both of my travels gave me more confidence in my Spanish skills and the ability to successfully travel throughout Paraguay.

Asuncion:
The focus of this one day travel excursion was to get both an understanding of how public transportation services work in Paraguay and how to travel safely in the capital city. I traveled with a member of the Agroforestry extension to the National University of Paraguay in the town of San Lorenzo, about 20 minutes outside of central Asuncion. We meet with both the National Forest Service to talk about their tree seed bank program and with a Taiwanese government sponsored agriculture program located at the University doing experiments on local produce. At both sites the people were very friendly to both me and my traveling partner. It did not take long until we had completed our given tasks and allowed to explore Asuncion for a few hours. We ended up going to one of the largest shopping malls in Asuncion where we ate really delicious fresh vegetable stir-fry and salads. The mall was pretty crazy, since it was obviously greatly influenced by western culture in terms of the types of stores and companies. After lunch we all gathered together at the Peace Corps office in Asuncion where we compared stories of our travels and learned about what the office has to offer us as resources. At the end of the day we were then given our locations for our weekend visit to a current volunteer in Paraguay.

Yhu (or Auga negra):
I spent four days in the small pueblo Yhu, located about 6 hours from Asuncion, with a current Environmental Education volunteer. My trip began at 5:30 am on Saturday. I left from Guarambare on a public bus to the terminal in Asuncion. There I took a bus 4 hours east to the city of Caaguazu. There I met Brendan, the current volunteer, who traveled the remaining 2 hours on the unpaved road with me. It just so happened that I was visiting this city during their fiesta patronal celebration and the town was loaded with relatives and friends visiting for the weekend to take part in all the festivities. We spent the first day visiting neighbors, watching the town futbol game, “working” at the town fiesta and then dancing at the huge fiesta until early in the evening be Paraguayan standards, but pretty late by the average American. On Sunday we visited more neighbors and families that Brendan lived with during his first three months at site and we attended the huge town horse show. That night a large storm hit the town and knocked at the power for the night and for the most of the next day. Luckily the weather was better by the morning and Brendan was able to show me most of the schools he currently works with and the municipalidade of the city. I had a really great time meeting lots of the people in his pueblo. I definitely think that I will be a part of the town gossip for a while. I also really enjoyed the time Brendan and I got to talk about his experience so far with the Peace Corps in Yhu and our discussions on other random topics like my broken electronics, religion, politics, and our enjoyment of JK Rowling and Dan Brown books. It was great to spend the weekend getting to know a current volunteer that I can later call for advice and added to the number of friends I have in Paraguay.

Side note for mom and girlfriends: Yes mom, Brendan is a boy and he was very nice to me during my visit. I would guess he would call you Mama Blatt if I had known him in the states. And yes girlfriends, Brendan is a good looking guy. And yes, I know that you might one day read this blog post Brendan, but you already know that you are very lindo. All the girls in Yhu think so as well.