Hey everyone :)

Tomorrow is my sister´s birthday!!!!!!!!!! She´ll be 19.  I am so blessed to have her in my life.  We have shared so many good (and bad) times together.  It´s so wonderful to have such a great sister and I love her so much.  I have host sisters here, sure, but it is totally not the same as a real one.  There is something about a real sister that just can´t be replaced.  No matter what they do you can never stop loving them.  God knew what he was doing when he put her in my life (or I guess since she is older he put me in her life)  I love having an older sister like Erika to share my life with, someone to pierce my ears, someone to share clothes with, and so much more.  I look up to my older sister and have learned alot from her.  I hope that I can be a good older sister to my little sisters like she has been to me.  I can´t imagine what my life would be like without her.  Happy Birthday Erika!!!

So next week is semana santa (holy week) and we are going to my grandma´s house in San Lorenzo.  I am so  excited to be going back because my all my host family will be there.  I have been missing my cousins and it will be good to see them all again and catch up with them.  We all get along really well.  This time we go there it won´t be quite so hot, so that will be nice.  I think that we are going to be able to go to the movies too.  I am excited to see how they celebrate Easter and learn more about their culture.

I have a really good relationship with my family.  I am so blessed to have such a good one.  I honestly could hardly imagine a better family situation.  Not even joking. My friends are also really great as well.  It is going to be so hard to leave this country and it´s people.  About 3 more months left.  I think that´s long enough, well, I guess it will have to be.  haha

So yeah, nothing extremely crazy going on at the moment, everything it very tranquilo... nothing to complain about :)

love you all  :*
Erin

School started!!! Actually this is the 4th week, wow it has gone by so quickly. My class subjects are different this year because I entered a different section of my grade. One section (the one I was in last year) has more classes which have to do with social sciences. And the other one has more to do with computers. This year I am taking...

Math

English

Physics

Chemistry

Life Science

Economy

Ethics

History

PE

Psychology

Gabinete (sort of like computers class)

Algorithim

Administration

Guaraní

Literature

yes, there are quite of few of them

I understand some much more this year, therefore, I enjoy it much more. I like my classes alot, my classmates are all great and so are the teachers. I love my English teacher, she is so fun! I am treated more like a normal person this year. Last year I would show my work the teacher, like everyone else, but they would just look at me, see that I´m an exchange student, and sign my work with hardly even looking at it. This year, they will actually correct it and tell me if I did something wrong or am missing something. My literature teacher is Argentinian and her accent is really interesting. I like listening to her talk, which is good, because she talks alot.

The only class I can absolutely not follow is Guaraní, it´s quite difficult and everyone has already been taking Guaraní for years. I wish I could understand it, because my family speaks it alot. When we are with my aunts and uncles, I can hardly understand anything because they speak so much of it. It is interesting to listen to though. It a pretty funny language with interesting sounds, it´s very nasilly.

Last Monday I went to Iguaçu Falls with my host sister Sady. Just her and I went because everyone was busy. It was good sister time, we have so much fun hanging out. I am so glad that we get along so well. It was just me, Sady, and our terere. The falls are AMAZING!!! I never wanted to leave. They are just so huge. They are so powerful that you can almost feel the booming of the crashing water in your body. It was quite the experience. There were lots of tourists there so I fit right it. Sady and I sort of hung out and took a zillion pictures. I know there is more to do there, but we didn´t have all day, or much money. I hope I get to go again before I go.

The falls used to be in Paraguay so the name of the falls is actually Guaraní. The original spelling is Yguasu. Y=water and guasu=big. Pretty interesting huh.

The two top national soccer teams in Paraguay are Cerro and Olimpia. Two Sundays ago there was a game between these two and it was crazy! I don´t know if I have seen people get so excited about sports. I am an Olimpian, they won. I am so glad they did. I never realized that sports could be so important to someone. There is no such thing as being neutral, it seems like everyone is VERY enthusiastic about their team. When there was a goal made, the neighbors set of fire crackers! The whole city shuts down when there is a big game, because everyone wants to watch the game. It´s pretty cool.

I have been in this family for 2 months and everything is going really well, no problems what so ever.

Everyone has skills, I do, but I never thought that certain ones would ever be needed or wanted or appreciated, here are a few of them.

1. french braiding

2. caligraphy

3. pancake making

4. English

5. cursive

6. cutting apples

7. oatmeal making

You never know how your skills, no matter how small, could be useful, or interesting to someone.

I am getting pretty excited for Easter because I am going to get to see my family again. I miss my cousins! We have so much fun together. I am looking forward to seeing how my family celebrates Easter. I know that we are going to San Lorenzo, which is close to Asuncion. I want to explore Asuncion a bit more, it seems like an interesting city.

I got my return date from AFS, it´s June 30 (get home July1) but I want to stay longer to go visit my missionary friends again. But I sort of want to leave with everyone else, so that we can all be together at the airport. But I am for sure going to go with them to the airport when they leave even if I do end up staying longer. I am so sad that I have to leave Paraguay. I will miss the people I have met her so much. And I feel like I still have so much to learn. I have under 31/2 months left, so I am just going to enjoy these last few months as much as a can and make the most of it all. Its kind of a weird feeling. I want to stay here, but I want to go home. Basically what I want is to be able to be in more than one place at the same time.

Love you all,

Erin