Unicef 10K

Can you find me in the picture above? This was last weekend's Unicef 10K race.

Here, its all about image, so they require that participants in races like this all wear the same shirt so that the pictures look impressive. I have to admit, it does look really neat when the whole street is filled with blue.

I also ran, about four weeks ago, the Nike WeRun Bogota 10K. There we all wore bright coral shirts.

Andres Carne de Res

There is a semi-famous restaurant here in Colombia, called Andres Carne de Res. It is considered to be the best place in the country for steak, and has an eccentric personality. An artist is the person who started the restaurant, with the original location still up and running in a suburb of Bogota named Chia. Our PTA took the whole staff there for beginning of the school year celebration. Here are some of pictures of the madness.

The man on the right performed a nice show for us. He also hosted our sunglasses competition.

Decor.

Our tray of meat and potato-stuffed tomatoes.
I was "dirty", so I got feather dusted. I tell you, this place is nuts.

Oh, good store bought salsa, how I miss you....

We are really sucking this year about posting regularly- sorry about that, loyal blog followers. The truth is, we really haven't gone out and seen much of what this beautiful country/city have to offer yet. We've been lazy; I apologize. We've been busy with school; I realize no excuse. Yes or yes (to use a favorite Paraguayan phrase) we are doing something next weekend around the city so we WILL have something to post about.

In the meantime, I will tell you one of my living abroad woes- the lack of good Mexican food. In Paraguay, it was basically non-existent. I made better Mexican food at home with my Penzey's spice mixes than the Mexican restaurant. I was hoping, since we were coming father north, and with Bogota being known for their restaurant scene, that good Mexican food would be available.

So far, nothing. We have eaten at two different restaurants, and they have been nothing to write home about. Salt and salt, and a splash of heat with no flavor is what we've found. There are two or three more restaurants we are going to try; I've been told they are better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Colombians are not a big fan of heat or spice in their food. Now, I don't like to breathe fire or anything, but a little kick every once in a while would be nice. Having flavor to food would be nice as well. Items labeled picante here, would be considered mild in the U.S.

Anyway, I resorted to making my own salsa in Paraguay since the ones available were not to my liking. However, since I would like chips and salsa to be my easy, go-to snack, whipping up a batch of salsa isn't what I want to do when I want an easy snack. I was hoping to find some good salsa here. In Bogota, I have found three different brands of locally made salsas. Only one so far has been acceptable. Just barely passable. For some odd reason, all the salsas are sweet. I'm not sure why you would add sugar to salsa, but that's what they do here.

And, as much as I hate to say it, the tortilla chips from Paraguay are better than the ones here. I actually resorted to making my own tortilla chips last weekend when I had some people over to watch True Blood (very easy, yet time consuming since I only have on baking sheet- just cut up some corn tortillas, spray with a little cooking spray and sprinkle with seasoned salt, or whatever other flavorings you would like; then bake for about 12-15 minutes).

Wish us luck when we try the other restaurants!

Caught in the Rain!

A group of us are trying to get a running group going once or twice a week. Well, today, we left school and the sun was out and it was beautiful and warm. Well, when we were about 2 miles out, the sky opened up and began to downpour on us. There was lightning and some light hail, and by the time we got back to Amanda's apartment, we were soaked through to the skin! A hot shower, and some warm food and I'm feeling much better, but boy was that cold!!

Asado

A while ago now, I spent one of the best Saturdays in Asuncion. My Spanish teacher, Maria Elena, invited me, Jesse, Danielle and her fiance Kagan to their house for an asado. Jesse, unfortunately, had a basketball game that day so he could go, so Danielle, Kagan, and I took the 18 bus out to the Jardin Botanico where Maria Elena came to pick us up to take her to her house. We had a wonderful time, just sitting, talking, and eating. Their yard made me incredibly jealous, as there were lemon, lime, orange, mandarin, grapefruit, mango, and papaya trees. The fresh squeezed mandarin juice was amazing! It was a simple afternoon, but one spent in a great, Paraguayan way. We hung out with Maria Elena, her parents, her husband, and her son, and really got to get to know some great people.

Bicentenario Downtown Celebration

On May 14th, the night before the official independence day, the downtown area was completely filled with people celebrating together. Many government buildings were lit up for the festivities and were absolutely beautiful. Different stages were set up in the various plazas where music was being played or demonstrations of Paraguayan crafts, and even a light/video show on the Presidential palace. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the night.

The harp is one of Paraguay's traditional instruments. This was a beautiful concert of harp students from a local music school.


If you can't tell what is happening in the above picture, she has at least 8 bottles stacked up on her head. This was one of the demonstrations I mentioned earlier.
After spending some time downtown, we went to a rooftop bar to enjoy the night. There was a nice surprise at midnight, when a beautiful fireworks show started and we got to see it all!

Paraguay Video

With the 200th anniversary of Paraguay's independence from Spain, there have been a lot of tourism and culture videos created to spark patriotism for the celebration in a few weeks. Here is one video that our librarian shared with us. It shows some beautiful scenery and things to do in Paraguay. We actually haven't been or done most of what is displayed, so it was informational for us too! Click on the link below to enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URch_tOeVlo&feature=player_embedded

Dengue Fever!

For the last few weeks, there has been an epidemic of dengue in Paraguay. For those unfamiliar with this disease, it is spread by mosquitoes and is accompanied with high fevers, headache, rash, joint and muscle pain, and with some strands, hemorrhaging, especially in the gums. It can be life-threatening, especially if you've already had dengue before.

There has been a lot of rain lately in Paraguay, which helps the mosquito population. Once a mosquito has bitten an affected person, they can spread the disease by biting another person, and thus, an epidemic has spread. Last week, soldiers and health officials started house searches, looking for stagnant water in some of the neighborhoods with the highest number of cases. Families are liberally spraying their students with Off! before coming to school, and local pharmacies are selling bracelets that have citronella to ward off the insects. At the local park where I run after school, there have been ladies offering to spray patrons with Off! before they enter.

I had one student who had it at the beginning of March and now, many people are afraid that they have it when they exhibit any of the symptoms. My Spanish teacher, Maria Elena, has been telling me that on all the Paraguayan TV stations there have been commercials educating people on dengue prevention. Hopefully, Jesse and I can escape this year without any severe illnesses.

Shakira, Shakira!

Live music is always a good time, and living abroad can sometimes make it difficult since musicians like we like aren't always coming to Paraguay. Jesse went to a Franz Ferdinand concert last year, and this year, Shakira came! It was her first time in Paraguay, and there was excitement in the air for weeks. Here's a few photos of her concert.
Ziggy Marley (Bob's son) opened for Shakira.
Only downside of the concert, it was on a Tuesday. And we had to work the next day. It was worth it.

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!

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!

A Piece of Grad School

As some of you know, I am currently enrolled in a master's degree program through the University of Alabama. They send a professor down four times a year to give us a whirlwind graduate course in two weeks. Friday was the last day of my last class. Since Jess and I have been so incredibly busy these last few weeks, I thought I would share something I wrote for that class. We read the poem Where I'm From (click to read the original) by George Ella Lyon, and were told to write our own. I only had 7 minutes to write, so take that into consideration while you read. I don't think this would be ready to be published just yet. Enjoy!

Where I'm From

I am from Wisconsin
Land of beer, brats, and cheese
Summers by the lake,
soaking up the sun, laying on the boat.
Winters in the snow,
with red cheeks and noses
coming in to warm by the fire.

I am from the land,
farmers are my heritage
growing corn and cows
picking strawberries with Grandma
or watching the tractor with Grandpa

Brothers, sister, cousins, all together
a noisy bunch we were
We still get together,
although less each passing year.

Moving from country to town
was hard for all of us.
Little league, flag football, track and field
Sports became almost all we knew
Seasons were not winter, spring, summer or fall,
but cross country, wrestling, track and softball

I'm from homemade cakes and cookies
never from a box or store
Crisp fall apples made into applesauce
country food at its best.

Counting Down

Right now, it is Monday night of the last week of our first year in Paraguay. It has been crazy hectic around here, trying to finish grades, go out to farewell dinners, continuing to train for the half marathon, and of course, catching as many World Cup games as possible. It hasn't quite sunk in yet that in less than a week, we will be back in Wisconsin seeing family and friends. These Wandering Wisconsinites will be heading back to the dairy state for some much needed r&r. Things that we are definitely looking forward to (well besides the obvious- seeing family and friends)
- Brewer's game
- testing out the new camping equipment we have been slowly purchasing over the last few months
- seeing a new nephew be born
- dark, good, tasty, delicious beer
- the cabin
- Hodag Music Festival
- Italian cheese fries, Wisconsin style
- grilled bratwurst
- canoeing
- trip to Minneapolis
- cheddar cheese
Oh Wisconsin- we'll be there soon!

The Last Few Weeks

Since the last post on semana santa, its been a very busy, yet chill time. I'll let Jess do the post on the superclasico soccer game we went to last weekend, but I thought I'd just post to write a bit about my weekly routine. I've been continuing my twice a week Spanish classes and I really am seeing improvement in my Spanish language. I've also started a Spanish language book club and we're currently reading novels from my 5th grade classroom. So while I may not be able to converse in Spanish at a 5th grade level, I can read books at that level!

This last week I also found out about a marathon, half marathon and 10K that are taking place in Asuncion in August. My friend Danielle and I, who run together twice a week, have decided to train for and run the 1/2 marathon. August 8th, 2010 be thinking of me!

Next week, I start my fourth and final master's class for the school year. It seems as if I just agreed to take this program and now I'm almost done with year one. Its crazy how time flies! In 7 and 1/2 short weeks, we will be in Wisconsin for a summer vacay. The countdown has definitely begun, along with planning for almost every day of our stateside stay. I'm trying not to count the days, but its too hard not to!

Parque Nacional Ybycui

A few weeks ago, we had a three day weekend for Hero's Day in Paraguay. Wanting to explore the country we live in a bit more, we rented a car for the weekend with Danielle and Kagan, and headed to a national park that we had heard good things about from a few people. The drive was surprisingly pleasant, and while we had a little issue with some people who didn't know how to drive on mud and got stuck so we had a picnic while they waited for the tractor to come and get them out of the ditch, we got to the park. We again were surprisingly surprised. Living in Central America for two years I guess our expectations for national parks was pretty low, but this park definitely surpassed them all. While we could set up our tents wherever we wanted, there were quite a few picnic tables and grills around, and there were some pretty nice bathroom facilities as well. And the location isn't too bad either! Jesse and Kagan had a really fun time after we realized that we didn't have chairs to sit on. My size coolers anyone?
It was sprinkling when we first arrived, so we didn't do much that first night. But the second day, we went on a hike. During this hike, we encountered many interesting items. First, we were amazed that a well-groomed trail existed here. Well, it was well-groomed until the first mirador or lookout point.
After this, the trail continues, but the word trail is used lightly. We continued, in 100% humidity, and climbed over boulders, walked into countless spider webs, were attacked by biting ants, and the final straw was a huge patch of burrs that proceeded to attack Danielle's pants to the point where she actually had to strip so that we could pull all the burrs off.
Going down, the trail was nice, and we noticed how many different ecosystems we were passing as we had climbed up one of the only hills in Paraguay.
After the hike, we were all just dripping in sweat, so we changed, and jumped into the river. The park is known around Paraguay for its waterfalls, and is supposed to have over 15 waterfalls. What's really cool is that the campsites are set up right by some natural waterfalls (Salto Mina).
After we enjoyed the cool, fresh water in the river, we took a shorter, much gentler hike to the Salto Guarani (Guarani waterfall). This waterfall was absolutely beautiful and incredibly relaxing.
We returned to the campsite, and noticed that we had some neighbors!
Looking back at the weekend, I felt that we participated in something that many Paraguayans would do (I feel like I can say that based on the amount of people that were at the park that weekend). It was a great weekend and was a fabulous way to see more of Paraguay.

Our New Wheels

After returning from the vacation, Jesse and I decided to get a mode of transportation, other than our feet, to use in the sweltering heat. So we bought a 150cc Leopard Moto. We've already used it a few times to experience and visit different parts of Asuncion. The challenge for Jesse now is to teach me how to drive it!

A Perfect Breakfast Pizza

Today, is the holiday of Caacupe, which will be explained more thoroughly in a later posting.  In celebration of this Paraguayan holiday, we got a day off of school!  So, as Jesse and I often do on the weekends, we made a big breakfast this morning.  In celebration (and to use up a few items in the fridge) I decided to make a breakfast pizza.  This is the first time I have attempted this, and I can't help it, I'm super proud of how beautiful it is and how good it tasted! 

Two Down, Eight to Go

This past Saturday Jesse and I finished our second master's class, this one a statistics based class. We both got A's! But after a long two weeks of spending every minute of our time at school (or so it seemed), after our final on Saturday we came home and relaxed in the pool.
Also, on a side note, what I am sitting on, and Jesse is holding, has become a necessity of our life here in Paraguay- the floatee. It gets very, very hot here, so having the pool and the floatee available make the heat a little bit more bearable. To give an example, today was 107. And it isn't even summer yet.