Valentine's Day. The 18th of February. Duhhh (my life & constant internet don't coincide)

Unfortunately I am currently up at 2:36am not able to sleep because my mind is all over the place right now. In two days I turn 24 years old! Which will be my second birthday in Paraguay. Never thought I’d say that before. The crazy part is that I will have a third as well. In two days it will also mark a YEAR (and a week) that I’ve been in Paraguay, which is also absolutely blowing my mind right now. Time passes so fast and so slow at the same time. It’s hard to explain but that’s just life in the campo I guess. One of the reasons I may not be asleep ahora mismo (right now) is because I can’t figure out what I’m gonna do for my birthday. I kind of left all the planning…until honestly right now. I had plans to have a big party in site so that I could invite a lot of my friends here, but since I got robbed again in Asuncion, I’m a little low on cash, so I’m probably going to keep it very, very small. So far my mental plan is to make a bunch of pizzas and have drinks, while I think my neighbor will be making my cake J The best part is that my friend Kelley will be joining me and I’m very excited for her to finally see my site! Another reason I’m a little preoccupied is that I am still dealing with the worst part of Paraguay, which I’ve found is customer service. I made a contract with an Internet provider here in Paraguay and without saying and names I really really REALLY dislike them to make the understatement of the year. To make a long story short, I wasn’t getting the coverage that I was paying for and decided not to pay anymore, thinking I could get away with it. However, being naive as such, I am now paying the price, along with replacing my USB modem that connects me with the service, which was stolen with my wallet. Anyways, I am at a daily battle with this company and it is making my life difficult trying to get work done in site. Overall, I hope a lovely Valentine birthday will take my mind off of all of this.

On the work side of things, I just recently returned from our Camp GLOW, which stands for Girls Leading Our World and a global Peace Corps initiative. It is a weeklong girls camp filled with activities directed towards female leadership, self-esteem, feminine power, and sex education. Basically helping Paraguayan girls from age 13-18 discover what it is to be woman in the 21^st century and the problems/challenges we face together and individually. This will be the second year that Paraguay has put on a Camp GLOW and from what I observed, experienced, learned, and participated in, it was a real hit for just the second year in country. I personally took two girls to the camp with me from my site and they really enjoyed it, which was really rewarding. The best part is that they both want to be models in our community and start up a Club GLOW too. The club aspect brings these themes and topics into the communities. After going, I realized that this is a topic that I am very interested in and see myself expanding on in site, so I volunteered to coordinate the camp next year with a bunch of my G mates. Super excited!

Another work note is that I’m planning on applying for  a Peace Corps grant in order to fund the fogon project I’m conducting in site so everyone hope for me that I get it J because I’ve been waiting an absurdly amount of time, hoping the money would come from the local government institutions. One of the worst bumps that I have encountered as a Peace Corps Volunteer is that I am a woman in a very machismo culture. For example, most of the time I am not taken seriously and most of the time laughed at if I ever talk about how I can do “man’s work”, like build the fogons. I also have a hard time being taken professionally with men. If I don’t accept attempts from men in the local municipality for example I don’t get any financial help for my projects, which is also why I’ve chosen to apply through PC. Although looking back it was a lot of work I put into trying to make sure the funds for a Paraguayan project were coming self-sustainably from within the country, in the end I want to finish the project before I leave which means sometimes stepping in and taking quicker actions (even though it might impede on the sustainability of the project). In the end, people are in need and I have a possible solution, avoiding it due to previous concerns would be, to me, unethical.

Enough of the serious-ness because I want to say that I am currently wishing everyone a love-filled Valentine’s Day! As Birthday Cupid, I demand you to go hug and kiss everyone that you love! Although it’s not anyway close to the same, I wirelessly send you mine! You know who you are J

Chauuuuuu – BESOS Y ABRAZOS GRANDES! LES AMO!

Alejandra

I still blog...haha (2 month update)

Hello everyone! Hope the holidays were fabulous for you all! I know it’s been a long minute since I’ve posted anything but it’s because I have been all over the place. Not technically the most guapa person in the books, but I’ve just had a lot going on. I think I’ll start with my Uruguayan Christmas with my lovely Peace Corps friends, which was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Not gonna lie…I may or may not have contemplated not returning to Paraguay solely based on the fact that I fell in love with the small beach town we stayed at, Punta del Diablo Uruguay. Probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. Three of my friends and I rented a small little house about two blocks away from the beach and spent six nights enjoying great seafood, hanging out on the beach (which I have desperately missed these past 11 months), and the tranquilo nightlife. Basically, it was the vacation well deserved and very much needed. After paradise we took the ferry to Buenos Aires and stayed in my old stomping grounds: Palermo. It was so much fun to go back and visit a few friends and visit all my old favorite spots in the city as well as finding new places. It’s changed a lot! It also made me think about how much I miss the city living. I do enjoy the Paraguayan tranquilo campo but I realized how much I miss the busy lifestyle as well. Always having something fun to do or somewhere to go, like restaurants, clubs, coffee shops, shows, concerts, the gym haha just to name a few. Anyways here are some photos to better explain the crazy fun adventure. Overall it was definitely worth the almost 50 hours of total travel time in buses.

El Camanito, La Boca, Buenos Aires. Classic spot ;)

Casa Rosada (Presidential House - Where Evita has here famous speech) Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires Pub Crawl.

TANGO!

Grabbin' some delicious fish empanadas right next to the beautiful beach!

G-38 Girlies out in Punta del Diablo!

U for URUGUAY

NYE Dinner!

Gorgeous Punta del Diablo

Kelley & I in Montevideo 

Awesome Gandhi quote in this cool cafe in Bs.As.

Hangin' out at the pier on the Costanera in Montevideo after biking all day :)

Bikin' downtown Montevideo next to the beach! Yes im taking the picture while riding the bike. Skillz.

La Boca, Buenos Aires 

Foolin around at the community creek

Muah just hangin' out in Boca

First Dinner in Buenos Aires. Oh yeah Peace Corps cleans up good. 

Havin' a little lunch on the beach. 

Punta del Diablo, Uruguay "Donde los angeles van de vacaciones" (Where angels go on vacation ;))

Travel Buddies! :)

Next stop: Mom came to visit! She came in on a Friday and we stayed the night in Asuncion before welcoming her into a two-week stay in the campo hehe. So crazy to think that the last time I saw her was a year ago in Mexico because it definitely does not feel like it has been that long. Time has seriously been flying by, which is a good and a scary thing to think about since that literally means that I will be gone in a little over a year. Anyways…staying in a nice hotel was the best thing ever, not to mention the lovely presents and things she brought me from the states. Shout out to my stepmom Fran Batzer & my Batzer Family for being awesome and sending me amazing gifts, thank you all so much! Miss & Love you all J We had a great little visit in site and I do have to say that I congratulate my mom for having the fuerza (strength) for experiencing what I went through the first three months of being in site and being such a CHAMP! For example, 2 hours after arriving in site, my community committee through a very generous yet extremely Paraguayan party. That is to say it was very awkward, quiet, and everyone just kept saying “ayyye Iporaaaaa isy!!” (Her mom is soooo prettyyyy). I kept having to explain to her that a group of people sitting quietly staring at each other and then eventually eating is completely normal and acceptable. I think they finally warmed up to her though since later on after trying to shove an entire roasted chicken (although somewhat of a pescatarian herself, I told them that she eats chicken so they were stoked to cook some meat for someone related to me), enormous servings of sopa paraguaya, and chipa guazu down her throat, they got us up and we started to dance some cumbia! Props for keepin’ up! That was just one of the two parties my community threw for her. Fortunately that was the craziest of the activities that she had to endure. They rest of the time we spent enjoying wonderful home cooked food, mango season J, visiting families, making Paraguayan food, learning Guarani & Spanish, and catching up! Even though we had a couple of bumps here and there, overall I’m very proud of my mom for dealing with all the craziness and differences in culture. Let’s just say she was a HUGE HIT in my site; however, let’s be real, most of it had to do with the fact that she’s gorgeous and blonde haha….maybe it might be because she’s really cool too. Who knows?! Love you momma! 

Taking a morning stroll.

Foolin around at the community creek

Delicious soy meat and black bean tacos with homemade tortillas  and mango salsa!

Walking to a senoras house in the beating sun.

Cake icing fight

Mom gettin her groove on at the committee meeting

Hangin out with my little guy Principe

Momma getting her hair braided

She looks worried lol

Mom & I with my two guapa committee members!

First Committee Welcoming Party for Momma. Whole chicken. Eat up!

The enormous and disgusting bug that attacked my house!

Last day together!

Saying goodbye!

Love you mom! Miss you already! Thanks for the amazing visit!

Next stop: Summer camps. I am currently in Encarnacion teaching health summer camps to kids in my friend Kalena’s site. We have had a turn out of about 12 kids or more each day. Each day has been dedicated to a specific topic or sector focuses on, which are Nutrition, Parasites, Dental, and Exercise. So far it’s been really fun but unfortunately I was unable to make the other two camps in the sites of two of my other G-mates since my mom was in town. I’m hoping on having one in my site before school starts up again so fingers crossed, hope the turn out is good as well! Oh yeah and I got to experience my first Carnaval too! My friend Yihanna who is also a PCV is a dancer this year! She was so amazing and fun to watch! Foam everywhere! I can't even imagine how crazy the one in Rio de Janeiro is!

Yihanna, our lovely dancer & the Girlies before Carnaval.

Drawing time!

Yay for Summer Camp!

Great kids haha but I seem to be the only one interested in taking this photo.

Serious competition

Kalena teaching Nutrition to the kids :)

Last thing…huge topic here in Paraguay. The heat. There’s a saying here: “There’s 9 months of summer and 3 months of hell”. I’m currently experiencing hell, trying not to become delusional while constantly dreaming of my Oregon snow. Oh how I miss you! So I don’t want to hear from any of you other there that you’re too cold because the polar opposite is NO BUENO!!! Love and accept it because there is a very sweaty volunteer dying of the heat down here everyday.

Anyways, wishing happiness to all!

Love from the depths of the Paraguayan inferno,

Alejandra ;)