I have a home!!!

Its been an really eventful complete of days! Yesterday the language staff took us on all day field trips to keep our minds off of our super important afternoon tell-all. It didn´t really work as my 15 passenger van of trainees sat in silence most of the day. Luckily, 3pm finally rolled around. They normally bring in the kid that cried the year before to talk about how their expectations weren´t met but now they love it. Apparently, 4 girls cried last year but they all early terminated within a few months, so that´s kind of funny! The volunteer was super nice though and wait it all boils down to is that our assignment is still just a bunch of words on some paper. We´ll get there and things may change or contacts may change. As usual, just go with the flow and be FLEXIBLE!

With that said, I didn´t cry but they´ll probably have me giving that speech next year. I´m not disappointed by any means, my assignment just isn´t what I had imagined at all. I´m the newest resident of Calle 2.000 Xaxi, Guayaibí (pronounced gua-ja-i-vi), which is in the department of San Pedro. San Pedro is the poorest department, so I´m glad I can help somewhere that really needs it! I´ll be working with a coopertive, Coopertiva Guayaibí Unidos, that is an agriculture coop with 80 members--VERY small. They produce mostly bananas and pineapples in the region and do some exporting to Argentina. As of now, I am told that want a volunteer because they´re interesting in improving farming productivity, exporting efficiency, and beginning to export tomatos. And the icing on the cake, I´m the most campo out of the 16 people in my training group!! That means that I´m living in the most remote area which I didn´t expect but I´m totally up for the challenge! My ¨city¨ has 400 people... so I´m sure they´re all going to know me! The second smallest site of the group has 2,000. Your pay is determined by how large your site is, and only 3 of us are at the rock bottom pay, which is 1.200.000 Gs a month. Its going to take a while to get over the novelty of being paid over 1.000.000 a month!! Also, I´m pretty excited because with a site so small I´ll be fluent in Guarani. I´ve kind of been holding off because a lot of people never even speak it, but it will be my form of contact I´m sure! I´ll try to throw in a Guarani lesson each time I write. Here´s today´s: Mba´eichapa is how you say ¨how are you¨ and the typical response is Ipora, which means good/well. Also, throw in a thumbs up too with it. They love the thumbs up here!!

Of the other 15 trainees, everyone is close to someone else other than myself and two others. Thats probably a good thing though because I really love some of the people in my group, and it will be better for us to be away from each other just for intergration purposes. And I´ll stay out of trouble too! :)

Other than that, we did some bee keeping this week and that was interesting. I´m not sure if I will have any of that in my site, but its definitely a trip! Even in full gear, which can be seen on Facebook, I still can´t get over the annoying sound of a ton of bees buzzing around my face! Ick!

This morning we had a a really early start. There have been bets floating around about a friend of mine sucking on cow teet. 5:30am was the magic hour apparently! I finally accomplished a life long dream of learning how to milk a cow (its sooo hard and I was horrible! Milk ALL over my feet... the squirt power is outrageously strong and unpreditable for amatures!) And my friend will put mouth to udder. The best part, our friend´s mom didn´t even think it was weird. Will said ¨and now like a baby cow?¨ in Guarani and she didn´t think twice. There were four of us there and we were crying we were laughing so hard. His payment for the best, another trainee, Andrew, has to kick 9 chickens. Kind of a random currency but should be entertaining too! Tons of great pictures that will have to be uploaded another day!!

So this week I´ll visit Guayaibí. We meet our contacts on Tuesday and have an overnight retreat with them at a center near here. Mine is the president of the coop and hopefully has patience since my Guarani SUCKS right now! Then Wednesday morning its off to our new homes for 5 days. I´ll get living arrangements together as well. We have to live with a family for the first 3 months and I´m planning on rotating houses every 2 weeks so I can get to know as many people as possible. We swear in on 17August and will spend 4 wild nights in Asunción before getting to our real jobs 21August. Wish me luck and keep the emails coming!

Oh, and one more note, although Ana was working for a while I´m doing yet another name change. Turns out Aña means devil in Guaurani. The Paraguayos don´t have a problem with Ana, but I do! Its Eva now... still sweet and simple (just like me! ha!)