Community Service

At ASA the students are required to do a certain number (100 I think but I might be wrong) of community service hours before they graduate. This means that starting in Middle School they have community service projects and once a month the school has a half day where the students spend 4 hours or so in the morning doing the projects. Last Friday was one of those days and the first one that my community service group participated in. I have a group of 11th and 12th graders who are not in my normal classes and our mission is to educate the community about environmental issues.

We chose to work with 2 schools in the community with the hope that the kids could grow up with knowledge of these issues and hopefully help exact some change. The school we went to on Friday called Onodivepa is a very poor school on the outskirts of town near the airport which has as student population of over 200 from grades K-9. There are many more students in the lower grades as many students leave school to work and help support the family when they reach about middle school age. The school doesn't have much of anything for supplies and was a very spartan place in general. In speaking with the director I realized that they are so short on books that they only have one or two books for each subject for an entire class. It's no wonder that students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade there still need help because they can't read well when there are no books!

My group worked with the students in grades 6-9 teaching them what global warming is, what causes it, a mini lesson about water pollution, making home-made lava lamps out of left over materials, and also setting up a recycling program with the school including arranging with a company to come pick up the recycling and pay the school for it. We decorated boxes for recycling with the students and set up reward systems to encourage them to recycle. If they reach the goals by the next time we visit the school, we'll throw them a party.

Meeting the students at the school and seeing how little they have really makes me want to help so I'm going to work hard on my own to get them some supplies (books mainly) wherever I can find them to help the school out. This is where you come in as a reader. I know that some of you out there might know a little about a charity or two that could be willing to help some students in a 3rd world country get a good education. If you do know of any charity or organization (this could even be your child's school if they are willing to raise some money for the cause) please get in contact with me and I'd be glad to show them a place where their help would be greatly appreciated.

Paraguay vs. Argentina

Wednesday night Jenna and I had the chance to go to our highest profile World Cup qualifying match yet as Paraguay hosted Argentina. We had fantastic seats for the game as we sat just off of midfield in the 14th row! The stadium is a very different setup than Estadio Olimpico in San Pedro. There is no track around the outside so the seats are much closer to the field, there are assigned seats so you don't have to get there 4 hours early, they just renovated part of it so it seems nicer and newer, and it is a bit smaller than Olimpico as well.
This was a huge game on many levels which I'll try to summarize for you. First for Paraguay a win meant qualification to the World Cup. Secondly Argentina has not been playing well recently (that's putting it mildly) and is in danger of not qualifying for the World Cup which is a big deal since they're one of the world powers and a legendary team in general. Speaking of legends, the coach of Argentina's team is Diego Maradonna who is one of the 2 players people talk about in the discussion of the best player in the history of soccer. Here is a fuzzy dark picture of him roaming the sidelines.
Argentina also boasts one of the current best and most famous players in the world in Lionel Messi. (I made the analogy that it was like watching Michael Jordan coach LeBron James.) Naturally I took a few pictures of him given his fame.

Overall Argentina didn't play well and Paraguay was impressive. They dominated the game and should have won by a bigger score than the 1 -0 final but the crowd was not complaining! The fans did a lot more singing and chanting than the Hondurans which I think was a direct result of them being a bit more coherent since there is no beer sold inside the stadium (though you can ask some vendors for "leche" and they'll bring you some beer on the DL). Fantastic experience all around and we look forward to watching the team next year in the Cup!

Agroshopping

One of my favorite things about Latin America is the cheap price of produce. Paraguay is no exception. Produce is extremely cheap. One thing that Asuncion has is a local, all natural, quasi-organic farmer's market. It is called Agroshopping, and it's held every Tuesday.

Its nice to see the community getting together and supporting it. Its funny, because the market takes place in the parking garage of a local mall. The stands are full of Asian food, homemade pizza crusts, Paraguayan cheese, spices and all kinds of wonderful fruits and vegetables.
Below is my bounty. I bought all these wonderful vegetables and a whole wheat pizza crust for the great price of $6.

School Concert

Every year, the school tries to bring in a musical group from somewhere around the world to bring culture to the students. This year, the group brought in was from Germany, and they played Boogie Woogie music. I was originally thinking something along the lines of "The Wiggles" from the Disney channel, but actually, the music was a mix of blues and jazz. The groups was really quite good and they got my elementary students up dancing.

Anniversary and One Master's Class Down

This Saturday was a big day for us in two ways- one, we have now officially been dating for one year; two, we finished our first master's class from the University of Alabama.

The master's class was linguistics for teachers, with a focus on second language acquisition. How we acquire/learn language really interests me, more than Jesse, but overall the class was intense but good. The first of 10 courses is done! Well, except for the final exam.

Our anniversary was yesterday. We celebrated being together officially for one year (what officially means anyway I really don't know) by going out to eat. We went to a restaurant called Un Toro y Siete Vacas which means One bull and 7 cows. This was a fancy place. Cloth napkins, an extensive wine list, and a waiter to refill our wine glasses. We both got rib eye steaks, about the size of both hands for the nice price of $9 each. Add a bottle of red wine, two side dishes, and a salmon appetizer, we spent about $45-$50 dollars. I love the prices in Latin America.

Our New-ish Furniture

For some of our loyal readers, you will remember a time when we took pictures of our new apartment. Well, the furniture that we had purchases from our predecessors, was, shall we say, less than ideal. So we took our living room furniture to a re-upholstering place. Below are our new chairs and couch.

It took a great deal of comparing color swatches, but we decided on a colorful red couch, and two off-white couches. They have brightened up our dark apartment quite a bit. They are comfortable, and cheaper than brand new ones!

Sunday in the piscina

Today was a great day for me in Paraguay. The sun was shining-not a cloud in the sky. I went to brunch with the girls and had mimosas for the second weekend in a row. Then, we lounged around in the pool. It was finally warm enough today to use our second story patio pool, so we took out the floaty chairs and enjoyed. Chaya and I did have some reading to do for our class, but no reason we couldn't do it poolside right?

Lapacho Trees

In the late 1970's or early 80's, a law was passed in Asuncion that trees could not be cut down in the city. This has resulted in a few problems in electrical wires, but a gorgeous and very green city. One of these trees is called the lapacho. This tree is absolutely beautiful and is all over the city. Right now is its flowering period, and the pink flowers are a symbol of winter in Paraguay. This picture doesn't quite do the tree justice, but its the best I can do for now. Around our school playground, there are four or five huge lapacho trees that grace the sidewalks with their small pink flowers.

A Brunch, a Hash Run, and a PTA Picnic

This past weekend was quite a busy one! I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of the festivities, maybe one of these days I'll remember to bring my camera with me. We started off the weekend on Saturday morning with a small brunch at my neighbor's house. I say small because of the amount of people, it was not a small amount of food! It was the first time since I moved here that I've had an actual cooked breakfast (breakfast burritos) and I stuffed myself! I don't think it helped that we made mimosas too! Now, I've never had a mimosa before, but they may have become my new favorite drink.

Our brunch went until 2:30, when I left to do a Hash Run. I've never heard of this before, so its a new thing for me. Apparently, the Hash House Harriers is a running club that operates runs throughout the world. A worker at the embassy has started one here about a month ago. They are generally biweekly runs, with dead ends, beer stops, and a flour trail to follow. I went to the one yesterday with a few other "virgens" and I decided to walk it since running on cobblestones doesn't seem like a good idea with my ankle track record. We had a good time laughing and searching for the trail, and when we finished, I realized that we had to chug beer. There was also a song and few other interesting aspects of the group. I'm not sure yet if this will become a fixture in my routine or not, but it was a nice way to see new parts of the city.

Finally, today was the PTA picnic at school. Jesse and I had signed up to play in a parents vs. teachers volleyball tournament. I played with 5 other elementary teachers, and we had fun, but man, the parents were good! We got creamed! Jesse also played in a pick-up basketball game and he played soccer against some parents too. The picnic also had a raffle (we didn't win the trip to Miami) and an asado (barbecue). It wasn't too bad, although I really wish we could have won something valuable!

Back to School

Our school down here is associated with a graduate program with the University of Alabama. Professors from the U of A come down to Asuncion four times a year and give master's degree classes. Well, Jesse and I decided we weren't busy enough (yeah right) and we have signed up for classes. Our first class is next week! We will be spending an extra 3 1/2 hours at school every night for the next two weeks (and four and 1/2 hours on Saturdays) taking this class. The blog might not get updated very much the next two weeks, because of said class, but we're looking forward to starting (me) and continuing (Jesse) our graduate degrees.