Since the last time I have written, very much has happened...I changed families. My (old) host brother, Ricar, and I have never really clicked. In November we started interacting more and life was getting better, but after I cam back from Hoenau, our relationship started to go back to square1. I don´t know if my expectations were off, but I expected the host family to actually talk to me, let alone treat me as one of them. Another big thing that I didn´t like was the fact that my host mom wouldn´t tell me when there was something that I did or said that she didn´t like, or thought I should change. I would always just hear it through the maid. Obviously, the maid, Mirian (who is also a really close friend), was not supposed to be telling me these things. I stood by the number 1 exchange student rule, be open and honest. But I couldn´t tell my old host mom, Cristiana, that I knew she was saying bad things about me to the maid, because then she would get really angry with the maid and then last thing I want to do is cause problems for Mirian. I have seen how Cristiana can be with the maids, and I knew that if I said anything about that, it would mean major trouble for Mirian and a majorly akward conversation. I told Cristiana numerous times that she can be totally honest and open with me about anything and she told me that if there was a problem, she would tell me. I guess either our definitions of "problem" are different, or she really didn´t want to confront me about anything. I got really frustrated with this whole situtation and I felt really helpless in trying to solve it because I could get to the heart of the issue without "tattleing" on Mirian.
Then when I would go to my exchange students homes and see how they all interact with their families, and I realized that with the family I had, I could really never have a normal relationship with them all, I had already been there for over 5 months. Five months is a long time and I could just stick it out I suppose that I could possibly have solved the a few of the problems witht them, but honestly, I didn´t want to. I wanted the next half of my exchange year to be spent as well as I can spend it, even if that meant changing families.
I already had a family in mind when I decided I wanted to change. You see, I have a friend from school, Sady, with whom I had hung out with on numerous occasions, therefore I knew her family. When I had been over, they all seemed like really nice loving people, and overall I great family. The dad seemed like he was interested in having an exchanger stay with them. When I asked him why they didn´t, he just said that it was because they didn´t really know how to. So even before I decided that I was 100% sure I wanted to change, I thought they would make a really great host family.
So finally one day I broke down and decided that I was sure I wanted to change families. So I told my mom. Telling her was really the hardest part of the whole thing. It is so difficult to tell someone, who has been feeding you and over all providing basic needs for you, that you don´t like them and don´t want to live with them anymore (of course I didn´t say it like that). But I knew that is what I had. So a bravely asked the question (more like strongly suggested it) and she called the AFS rep that day and I talked to her the next day. The AFS rep, Zoila, told me that she wouldn´t be able to find a new family for me until middle of February when schools starts again. Of course I didn´t want to wait that long so I started searching on my own. First person I asked was Sady´s family. They said yes!! They had to fill out a few forms and such, but within a little over a week, I was able to move in! So here I am, today is the start of my third whole day with them and I already feel more at home with them than I did after five months with my other family. One really cool thing, which you might not find that exciting, is that for the past 3 breakfasts I have eating cereal and milk. YES, cereal and milk!
Let me give the basic facts about my new home.
1. It is located in area 2, ciudad del este, paraguay (only about 10 minutes away from my old house
2. family members: Roberto Benitez (father), Juana (mother), Sady (sister, age almost 16), Milena (sister, 9), and Jazmin (sister, 6). The two younger ones really treat me like a sister. And I actually call my host parents mama and papa. And when my host sister talk about them they say OUR mom or OUR dad. I think they get the whole exchange student is supposed to be apart of the family thing.
3. Since it is summer, we have some cousins visiting and we all sleep on matresses in one big room. So in all there are 8 of us living in the house know. I really like my cousins!
4. We have hot and cold running water
5. we don´t have a dryer but do have a washing machine
6. of course no dishwasher!
7. I technically don´t have my own room yet, because sleeping arangments are crazy now because of all the visitors (don´t worry, I´ll have one eventually)
8. We have a pool
9. the neighborhood is less dangerous than my old one (always a plus :)
My host sister is a really sweet person and very caring. Like the first night I was here I was feeling kind of homesick for my family in MI and she comforted me and assured me that I could really feel at home there, and I do! When I told Cristiana that I was homesick (like in August or September), she was like "oh, well you have the rest of the year here"...ummmm ,´needless to say, that did not make me feel better.
I don´t feel like I wasted my time with the other family. I learned alot, and I that whole time I was learning Spanish and making friends. I had to learn to deal with situation that I would probably not have to deal with if my host family had been great from the start, or if I had never changed. I really think it is better this way. And as I said, I already feel at home here in my new home! I will be able to go to the same school and be in the same class as my sister. That is great news because I really like Santa Tere (my school).
Alot has been changing and happening in my life, it is just that those things aren´t very blogable topics. I only have 4 more weeks left of summer freedom, and then school starts again, which really isn´t such a bad thing. 23 more weeks until I come home (not that I´m counting down or anything)
Well, I could go on and on about how much I love my new family, but I think what I have written will suffice.
I love you all friends and family,
Erin
Monday, January 18, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Christmas and New Years
I hope that everyone had a fabulous Christmas and a super good New Years!
My family and I left for Asuncion a on the 23. We went to Asuncion because it is where the parents of my host mom live. I really like Asuncion and her parents. What I did not like was the HEAT! It was so hot. Like all I wanted to do was drink water, take cold showers, and sit in airconditioned rooms. At night it cooled down to about 35ºC, I don´t even want to know what the temperature was durning the day time! And it is not a dry heat either, it is really humid. Like everyone was always a little shinny, because you can´t avoid sweating even if you are just sitting still! So yeah, that was a new experience.
The day before Christmas we went to the grocery store, that was cool cause I like Paraguayan grocery stores, I think it is because they have alot of interesting fruits. Then we came home and I wrapped presents. I like doing that because I was in a room in air :) then took a shower and got ready for church. Then we went to the Catholic mass. It was nice, we sang a little and then they priest talked for awhile, then we prayed sang some more and it was over. I am always really confused when it comes to the praying part because not everyone does the same thing. Some people sit, stand, or kneel. I am not sure which would be the most respectful thing to do. Then afterwards there was a living nativaty. I really liked it. It was more like a little play of the Christmas story, with singing and everything! I enjoyed it so much. then we went back to the house. We started to eat dinner around 11:30pm. Then at 12:00 we all did saludos and sang a bit. I saw another side of my host mom that night, she is really quite the enthusiastic singer, in a funny way. Like one of the biggest Christmas songs here is Jingle Bells or in Spanish, din din dom, but the words are different. I thought that was cool. Then we opened presents. Presents here aren´t really that big of a deal. With my family in MI, we open our presents one at a time and everyone looks to see what you got and then move along to the next person. Here it is more like okay, 1, 2, 3, open. I am so used to opening gifts one person at a time, that I felt guilty not waiting, weird, huh. I went to bed around 3 or 4. That was Christmas Eve.
Christmas day...we went to Ypacarai where the family of my host dad lives. But we ended up just spending the day with some family friends. They have a son who is 13 and a daughter who is 16. They are pretty musical people so we played so music together, it was really fun and I enjoyed it so much. So most people watch White Christmas or Elf on Christmas if they are going to watch a movie. We watch a horror movie. Usually I can´t stand horror movies, but somehow this one was kind of funny. I don´t know why they watched it because it was in English with no subtitles. There was visually scary things, it was just like a haunted house story, where pictures move and door shut by themselves. I think I laughed at this movie maybe more than a comedy film. Anyways. we ended up staying the night at their house. And that was my 2009 Paraguayan Christmas.
We went home a couple days later. I have basically been spending my summer jumping from one friend´s house to another, running errands, or just hanging out at home with Mirian and Julio. It´s been good. The AFS who started their year in February, or who are only staying for a semester are returning home January 6. It´s pretty sad :( They will be missed
We were planning on having people over for new years but they counldn´t make it, so it was just us. It was nice thouh I really liked it. The food was really good. There is this party called Noche Blanca (white night) on new years eve. It starts about 1 and goes till whenever. The majority of the people who go stay until at least 5am. I didn´t really want to go, so I went over a friends house instead. I had dessert over there and we played uno, and watch the ending of a movie on TV. I was so tired I only stayed till about 3am. It was a great way to start the new year :D
I don´t have any big trips planned or special events comming up, so life is pretty chill right now. My current mission is to get a Brazilian visa, becase my friend said that she would take me to church with her and they have a youth group and everthing, but it is in Brazil and I don´t have a visa. I also want to go the waterfalls. So I´ll let you know how that goes.
Feliz Año Nuevo,
Erin
My family and I left for Asuncion a on the 23. We went to Asuncion because it is where the parents of my host mom live. I really like Asuncion and her parents. What I did not like was the HEAT! It was so hot. Like all I wanted to do was drink water, take cold showers, and sit in airconditioned rooms. At night it cooled down to about 35ºC, I don´t even want to know what the temperature was durning the day time! And it is not a dry heat either, it is really humid. Like everyone was always a little shinny, because you can´t avoid sweating even if you are just sitting still! So yeah, that was a new experience.
The day before Christmas we went to the grocery store, that was cool cause I like Paraguayan grocery stores, I think it is because they have alot of interesting fruits. Then we came home and I wrapped presents. I like doing that because I was in a room in air :) then took a shower and got ready for church. Then we went to the Catholic mass. It was nice, we sang a little and then they priest talked for awhile, then we prayed sang some more and it was over. I am always really confused when it comes to the praying part because not everyone does the same thing. Some people sit, stand, or kneel. I am not sure which would be the most respectful thing to do. Then afterwards there was a living nativaty. I really liked it. It was more like a little play of the Christmas story, with singing and everything! I enjoyed it so much. then we went back to the house. We started to eat dinner around 11:30pm. Then at 12:00 we all did saludos and sang a bit. I saw another side of my host mom that night, she is really quite the enthusiastic singer, in a funny way. Like one of the biggest Christmas songs here is Jingle Bells or in Spanish, din din dom, but the words are different. I thought that was cool. Then we opened presents. Presents here aren´t really that big of a deal. With my family in MI, we open our presents one at a time and everyone looks to see what you got and then move along to the next person. Here it is more like okay, 1, 2, 3, open. I am so used to opening gifts one person at a time, that I felt guilty not waiting, weird, huh. I went to bed around 3 or 4. That was Christmas Eve.
Christmas day...we went to Ypacarai where the family of my host dad lives. But we ended up just spending the day with some family friends. They have a son who is 13 and a daughter who is 16. They are pretty musical people so we played so music together, it was really fun and I enjoyed it so much. So most people watch White Christmas or Elf on Christmas if they are going to watch a movie. We watch a horror movie. Usually I can´t stand horror movies, but somehow this one was kind of funny. I don´t know why they watched it because it was in English with no subtitles. There was visually scary things, it was just like a haunted house story, where pictures move and door shut by themselves. I think I laughed at this movie maybe more than a comedy film. Anyways. we ended up staying the night at their house. And that was my 2009 Paraguayan Christmas.
We went home a couple days later. I have basically been spending my summer jumping from one friend´s house to another, running errands, or just hanging out at home with Mirian and Julio. It´s been good. The AFS who started their year in February, or who are only staying for a semester are returning home January 6. It´s pretty sad :( They will be missed
We were planning on having people over for new years but they counldn´t make it, so it was just us. It was nice thouh I really liked it. The food was really good. There is this party called Noche Blanca (white night) on new years eve. It starts about 1 and goes till whenever. The majority of the people who go stay until at least 5am. I didn´t really want to go, so I went over a friends house instead. I had dessert over there and we played uno, and watch the ending of a movie on TV. I was so tired I only stayed till about 3am. It was a great way to start the new year :D
I don´t have any big trips planned or special events comming up, so life is pretty chill right now. My current mission is to get a Brazilian visa, becase my friend said that she would take me to church with her and they have a youth group and everthing, but it is in Brazil and I don´t have a visa. I also want to go the waterfalls. So I´ll let you know how that goes.
Feliz Año Nuevo,
Erin
Hoenau!
The first half of my December was SUPER BIEN!.
I visited those missionaries in Hoenau. Hoenau is a smallish city which is about a 5 hour bus ride. The bus ride was an experience in its self. But I guess I got to learn about the Paraguayan bus system. The bus I went on was not the one that I first bought the ticket for. I had originally planned to go on a nice, air conditioned bus directly to my destination. But whe I got there the next day they told me that there were not enough people who wanted to go so they put me on a different bus without air and that stopped about every 5 seconds, well okay, maybe more like 20 to 40 minutes. That made the trip alot longer. When you pull into a bus station, you don´t even need to get out of your seat to buy something. Sometimes all you have to do is hand your money out the window and they will give what you want. Other times, almost every time really, people come onto the bus and sell stuff. These people are VERY persistent, so I learned to just look like I am sleeping when they come around. At one point I though we were in Brasil because practically everyone in the bus was speaking portugese. In fact a lady sat down next to me and started talking to me in portugese. I think she thought I was Brasilian because I definately look more Brasilian than Paraguayan. It turned out we were just in a city super close to the border.
Any how, I finally arrived there and met up with my friend. We did various activities that wee, like baking christmas cookies, putting up the christmas decorations, visiting a few of her friends, going to church, going to a prayer meeting at her church, and painting.
I enjoyed the food SO much. Since my friend is from the US too, she makes food that I am more familiar with and have not eaten for a LONG time! It was nice being there for part of the Christmas season because I got to experience it with an North American who knows how Christmas is in my country and so I got to have a little piece of the USA in Paraguay. I also did alot of painting. They are still working on finishing their house so I got to paint their sons room. We painted two of the walls blue and the other one a sandy color. It was alot of work, but in the end it looked SO good!
So it turns out that my friend has a little instrument collection at her house, so even though she doesn´t play, she has a violin in her house. It was so nice to play after such a long time. My friend and her husband are both musical, so we did a christmas music number for church. I played violin, she trumpet, and he piano. It might sound like an odd mix, but it was fun and everyone enjoyed it. There was also an intern/helper there and he actually had a cello with him! That is so rare to find a cello in Paraguay, or to have someone bring it along with them. So the next Sunday I played a Christmas duet with him. I love playing music (especially Christmas music) with other people.
One other huge highlight was eating ice cream. Well eating ice cream alone is not that exciting, but this ice cream place was amazing. So you know how when you go to get icecream and there are a bunch of buckets and you tell the person behind the counter what you want, well at this place you got to serve your own ice cream and make it just how you want, and they have like a zillion flavors there. If you are ever in Encarnacion, Paraguay, I highly suggest going to this ice cream place.
I was there from December 3 to December 14. I hope I will be able to visit them again! I had such a good time and I am so greatful that I was able to meet up with them. What a blessing!
Life is Good,
Erin
I visited those missionaries in Hoenau. Hoenau is a smallish city which is about a 5 hour bus ride. The bus ride was an experience in its self. But I guess I got to learn about the Paraguayan bus system. The bus I went on was not the one that I first bought the ticket for. I had originally planned to go on a nice, air conditioned bus directly to my destination. But whe I got there the next day they told me that there were not enough people who wanted to go so they put me on a different bus without air and that stopped about every 5 seconds, well okay, maybe more like 20 to 40 minutes. That made the trip alot longer. When you pull into a bus station, you don´t even need to get out of your seat to buy something. Sometimes all you have to do is hand your money out the window and they will give what you want. Other times, almost every time really, people come onto the bus and sell stuff. These people are VERY persistent, so I learned to just look like I am sleeping when they come around. At one point I though we were in Brasil because practically everyone in the bus was speaking portugese. In fact a lady sat down next to me and started talking to me in portugese. I think she thought I was Brasilian because I definately look more Brasilian than Paraguayan. It turned out we were just in a city super close to the border.
Any how, I finally arrived there and met up with my friend. We did various activities that wee, like baking christmas cookies, putting up the christmas decorations, visiting a few of her friends, going to church, going to a prayer meeting at her church, and painting.
I enjoyed the food SO much. Since my friend is from the US too, she makes food that I am more familiar with and have not eaten for a LONG time! It was nice being there for part of the Christmas season because I got to experience it with an North American who knows how Christmas is in my country and so I got to have a little piece of the USA in Paraguay. I also did alot of painting. They are still working on finishing their house so I got to paint their sons room. We painted two of the walls blue and the other one a sandy color. It was alot of work, but in the end it looked SO good!
So it turns out that my friend has a little instrument collection at her house, so even though she doesn´t play, she has a violin in her house. It was so nice to play after such a long time. My friend and her husband are both musical, so we did a christmas music number for church. I played violin, she trumpet, and he piano. It might sound like an odd mix, but it was fun and everyone enjoyed it. There was also an intern/helper there and he actually had a cello with him! That is so rare to find a cello in Paraguay, or to have someone bring it along with them. So the next Sunday I played a Christmas duet with him. I love playing music (especially Christmas music) with other people.
One other huge highlight was eating ice cream. Well eating ice cream alone is not that exciting, but this ice cream place was amazing. So you know how when you go to get icecream and there are a bunch of buckets and you tell the person behind the counter what you want, well at this place you got to serve your own ice cream and make it just how you want, and they have like a zillion flavors there. If you are ever in Encarnacion, Paraguay, I highly suggest going to this ice cream place.
I was there from December 3 to December 14. I hope I will be able to visit them again! I had such a good time and I am so greatful that I was able to meet up with them. What a blessing!
Life is Good,
Erin
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