Before I translate the title of my blog, I want to acknowledge the death of a fellow volunteer here in Paraguay. As many of you may not have heard, I didn’t want this to alarm you. The death was due to a severe car accident. It doesn’t make it any easier to take or make it better understood, but it was an accident, and accidents can happen whether you’re here in Paraguay or the United States or any other place in the world for that matter, obviously.
Emily Balog, a volunteer in my sector that had been in Paraguay for a little over a year, died in a car accident on November 27th, 2011. Why am I just writing about this now? Well, I guess I was just putting off; not because I didn’t want to or didn’t care, but because I couldn’t get myself to write about it and time passes quickly and I find myself now on the day before Christmas Eve not having written about it yet…until now.
The following Tuesday after the accident, most volunteers in Paraguay, myself included, went to the Peace Corps office in Asuncion for an event meant to celebrate her life. It was a beautiful event and many volunteers, each affected in different ways, pulled together and put together a nice but rightfully doleful celebration. I didn't know her very well, but Peace Corps volunteers are quite the family so t doesn't matter if you know the person well because I sense we all have a connection. It will take time I’m sure for many volunteers to jump right back in to work especially those closest to in her group (G33), but all volunteers here that I’ve met have struck me to be very strong, resilient people. For that, I hope that all can remember her in their own way and be able to carry her legacy on through their own service. I plan to do just that.
So the title. It means “It’s really hot” in Guaraní. During the past week, it has been over 100 degrees here every day. I don’t believe I have ever known the combination of intensely hot air and hot sun like those that I’ve felt here. If that is exaggerated, the amount that I have sweated here in the past week is not. Between it being so hot, walking around a lot, fixing up the house where I’m going to live, and eating little because all I want to do is drink water, I think I have lost some weight. I have no way of verifying that as I do not have a scale here to weigh myself, but I feel scrawny.
In other news, people have been busying themselves here in preparation for Christmas and New Year’s. As in the states, it is tradition for families to celebrate the two holidays together typically with a dinner of some sorts. For Christmas, many families stay up until midnight and then either go to sleep or go to a party or, more realistically, the plaza and get drunk and belligerent there. We’ll see what my first Christmas abroad has in store for me. I plan to spend it with my host family, which should be very nice.
In terms of work here during the summer vacation, I will continue work with the youth group, I plan to work with 2 schools in organizing their libraries and in requesting more book, I would like to do a summer camp with elementary school kids touching on various areas, I have a leadership camp to attend with a few youth from my community, and I have to finish my community study, which is a comprehensive report on the town, its history, conditions and resources, strengths and weaknesses, and possibilities for the future. I’m sure other things will present themselves, or rather, I will have to go present myself to things, which doesn’t bother me.
So as to not go on to long, I will stop and wish you all a very happy holiday, whatever the holidays may mean to you. Christmas will be a bit strange being in 100 degree weather in the middle of South America, far from family and American friends, but I have a very warm family and some good friends in my town with whom to pass the holiday. It certainly is no replacement, but know that I’m well and happy. I wish the same for you all, and I’ll try to update in blog more often since I’ve done a miserable job of it thus far. Also, I’ll try to make the updates a little bit more interesting since life here, in its own unique way, is interesting and I should do a better job of sharing it than just writing about tragic events or very general, nondescript items.
Sending love and wishing you all the best in the year to come!
