In Your Face!

While Jesse is away at Rancho (will be explained later), I thought I would take this opportunity to share a high school event. As an elementary teacher, I don't often get to partake in high school events, but last week, there was a pep rally, and it happened to be during my prep time. So I went. And I'm glad I did. I think the pictures speak for themselves

Spa Day

After the past few weeks, I decided I needed to take a personal day. Along with my neighbor and another teacher at school, we made spa day appointments. Along with the required hour massage, I also got a de-stressing facial, and a pulido.

What's a pulido you may ask? Good question. It is a complete body exfoliation. Let me describe. I put on my swimsuit, then was asked to get into a small room, with a plastic massage table. I climbed onto the table, then the employee, wearing a swimsuit herself, started to hose me down with a shower head. After that, she put on scrubby gloves, and proceeded to scrub my entire body. Hard. I turned over, and the scrubbing process started again.

After both sides had been scrubbed, I thought a quick rinse and we'd be off. Well, that's just not how thing happen here in the 'Guay. She rinsed me off yes, but then, I was washed by her. Soap was poured onto my body, and I was lathered up.

That wasn't everything. After the lathering, a quick massage ensued, then she started slapping my body to stimulate blood flow. It sounded really hilarious with the slapping sounds reverberating against the walls, and especially since my friends were next door and we could hear each other being slapped.

Good massage, good facial, interesting to say the least exfoliation. Overall, a successful spa day!

Jorge Gayoso, Remansito

Three years ago, a teacher started a Sunday program of going to an area, just outside of Asuncion, and feeding the students there and playing educational games with them. Well this little project has expanded into the Jorge Gayoso School, in the area of Remansito, becoming our school's sister school. The high school sends a community service group out there a few times a year, the middle school started a school supplies drive, and the elementary student council organized a clothing drive.

I'm not a student council leader, but I was asked by the teachers to help out on the day of the drive. The purpose of the drive was to collect gently used clothing from students and their families, go out to Remansito, sell the clothing for 2-3 mil (roughly 30-70 cents) a piece, then use the money to purchase books and other supplies for the school.

Nothing ever seems to go smoothly in Latin America, so of course, 15 minutes into our trip, the bus breaks down. So we had to unload the bus of all the clothes for the drive, and wait on the side of the road for another bus to come.
But we did make it there, with all the student council students safe and sound, with plenty of time to set up shop.
There were a lot of people waiting for us to open shop.
We had native Spanish speakers manning the registers, just to make sure everything went smoothly. We also weren't sure how many of the parents would speak Spanish or Guarani (native indigenous language) so Lorenzo was a big help in making sure it went great!
The elementary school had collected over 2000 pieces of apparel. This is a picture of the baby clothes/toy room.
It seemed as if everyone from the community came out to shop. Here, a little girl and her big brother!
All in all, the student council collected plenty of money to put back into the same community, through books, notebooks, a lock for the office door, and other miscellaneous school supplies that they need.

On a side note, our school also just purchased new desks and chairs, and the old ones are being donated to Jorge Gayoso as well. So our school is definitely giving back to those in the community who are in need. Our elementary students did so well during this event, that I'm sure more events like this will come.

Halloween

Can you guess who Jesse and I are?
The Big House had their traditional party, and all big house inhabitants dressed thematically, pirates and gypsies.

Laguna Blanca- on the water

During our camping trip, we wanted to spend as much time in or on the water as possible. This was a little difficult, since the weather didn't cooperate for half the time. But we were still able to keep ourselves busy. The ranch had a rowboat, a canoe and several kayaks left over from the 70's available for rent. The decision was made to go fishing.

The poles that the ranch had to offer were the classic Tom Sawyer style- a stick with a string and a hook on the end.
What to use for bait? Well good thing Jesse and Danielle are such good grasshopper catchers! They caught plenty for us to use.
We all climbed into the boats to head out and try our luck in catching supper.
Jesse was the only lucky one to catch a fish. Since we only caught one, we threw him back. But the fish was a tilapia, one of my favorites!

Laguna Blanca

Last weekend we had a much needed, five day spring break. In our effort to see more of Paraguay, we hired a driver, packed up the tent and supplies, and headed to the elusive Laguna Blanca. Teachers had spoken of hearing of a white sand beach with a lake of crystal clear water, but some thought this was a myth. Its not. Paraguay does have a spring fed, crystal clear lake, surrounded by a nature reserve. In fact, there is a team of scientists there right now studying the flora and fauna of the area, and have found what they believe are two new species of frogs.

Anyway, we went with three other couples, Kathryn and Lorenzo, Jac and Guille, and Danielle and Kagan. All of our supplies barely made it into the van, but soon we were on our way. The laguna is partly owned by a man who runs a ranch nearby and rents out cabins and offers camping as well. It is incredibly hard to get to. Three hours on paved roads, and then another hour on dirt roads, that include four of the sketchiest bridges I've ever been on . Think planks of wood across little creeks. Super scary in a big van!

We got there, set up our tent, and explored the lake a bit. We spent three days there, and it was a wonderful way to get out of the city and enjoy the nature of Paraguay.
We played quite a few games of sand soccer. They resulted in injuries for almost everyone.
We also took a few hikes around the lake to look around. Jesse will be doing a post later on some of his findings.
Since it is anaconda mating season, we were hoping to see one, but alas, we didn't find one. We didn't even see a tarantula. Maybe we'll have more luck on our next camping excursion.

Newest Piece of Furniture

We went downtown a few weeks ago and came back with this! A little Paraguayan stool to be our souvenir. Surprisingly, its pretty comfortable!

What is he doing? What is that?

The arm you see is Jesse's. What he is doing is cutting is the layer of skin off of a slab of bacon before he slices it himself. Yup, we are starting to slice our own bacon. This is supposedly the best bacon our middle school principal has found in Asuncion. We'll let you know after we eat it.

Club Mbegua

In an effort to get out of our suburbia bubble, I spoke with a few teachers who are married to Paraguayans to get a few ideas. One of those ideas was to take the ferry across the Paraguay River/Asuncion Bay to a place called Club Mbegua (pronounced Bay-wah- is Guarani for a type of bird). Apparently Paraguay is the birdwatching capital of the world, with more species in the country than anywhere else. The teacher that I spoke to said that it would be a good time to cross the bay because all the migratory birds are currently migrating and we might be able to see some cool birds. Well, we did see some birds, so she was right. But more than that, we saw a glimpse into Paraguay's past.

Remember the resort that Baby and her family go to in Dirty Dancing? Kellerman's? Fifty years ago, Club Mbegua was the Paraguayan version of Kellerman's. Now it is a decrepit, falling down, country club-esque area that could be absolutely beautiful. Walking around was almost eery. Visions of horror films at the abandoned country club definitely went through our minds. I imagine that when the country was under the control of the dictator, this place would have been an ideal place to go for a family picnic, to host sporting events, weddings, special events, everything. But it appears that no one has really used the place since the dictator fell out of power.
We did get to take an amazing/scary/how-is-this-boat-actually-moving-this-might-be-the-first-engine-made-in-Paraguay boat ride across the river. This picture doesn't quite do the boat justice. The engine was right in front of Jesse, and we paid the driver $4 to take us across.

Back to the club, there were a few people laying around by the kiddie pool, and it appears as though the local crewing team uses the club to store their boats and use the river to practice, but the rest was deserted.
The big pool. Jesse and Kagan are practicing their front crawl.
The nice thing about the area was that we got a pretty decent view of Asuncion from the other side of the bay.
Who knows what we'll see next time we leave our bubble!

80's Party Night!

There are five teachers that have birthdays in August, so traditionally here, there is an August birthday party. Themed parties always seem like so much fun, so we had an 80's night, complete with Dirty Dancing being shown on the side of the house! Do you like our outfits?