Jaha!

This week at work it was back to the office. I spent some time processing evaluations from the past two Global Village volunteer teams, some time translating some materials and some time shadowing different people on staff; an architect and Pepa, the Coordinator of the project ‘Sirviendo a Colaboradores’, a program that collaborates with businesses and companies to provide new homes, additions or home repairs for their employees.

I continue to not entirely understand how things get scheduled at the office, whether an official outlook calendar situation does not exist or if I am just not included it. It results in a lot of “okay, Nicole you’re going to go with this person to this place for this amount of time and you leave now”. Sometimes one or more of those items is left out or I miss it in translation. There are also times I don’t know what we’re doing until after we get there. I’ve found it helps to have a “Jaha” attitude. Jaha is one of the few Guaraní words I’ve learned. It basically means “let’s go” and has been the attitude I’ve tried adopt in relation new things, different experiences or lack of a comprehensible schedule.

Friday, December 5^th was the International Day of Volunteers. Habitat threw an event at a bar downtown. It was my first time seeing much of the nightlife downtown. The event started at 8, but no one showed up until almost 10, so I brought out my deck of cards out and taught Laura, Milena and Pepa how to play ‘Asshole’. Explaining it in Spanish I’m pretty sure they were convinced I was making up rules the first couple rounds but then got the hang of it. The event was nice, but incredibly difficult with loud music in a crowded bar, to understand people. I think I had a full conversation with someone in which they asked a question, I responded with an answer to a completely different question, they said something I didn’t understand and I just continued to talk about whatever I had been saying before, repeat. Other than loud bars I am have more significant conversations and pick up on at least the topic of conversations happening around me.

Laura, Milena, Pepa and me before any volunteers showed up. 

December 8^th is a National Holiday, the Día del Virgen de Caacupe. Luckily this year it fell on a Monday, making it a 3-day weekend. I went with Mary, Basilio and Yohanna to visit some of their family in Encarnacion, a city in the south of Paraguay, about 5 hours from Asuncion, because Jaha. Basilio’s parents and two brothers all live in Encarnacion or the campo surrounding it.

We left super early Saturday and arrived in time to have lunch with his parents. They have a modest house on a large plot of land with a stream that runs through it. 

"Nicole, want to take a stroll down this stream?" "Jaha!"

Basilio’s older brother lives “next door” which is more like “the next farm over”. He owns about 16,000 chickens and sell eggs and chickens for a living. They also grow the majority of their own vegetables and have a fishpond in the back, where I caught my first real fish! A tilapia that we had for dinner the next night. 

That time I caught a tilapia, grilled it and ate it! Jaha. 

Saturday night we all went to Basilio’s younger brother’s house in the city, he owns a business and was having a holiday party for all of his employees. Dinner wasn’t served until about 11:30pm but the meat there was some of the best I’d had since I’d been in Paraguay, specifically the lamb. The whole family was incredibly warm and welcoming. They made me feel truly comfortable, like I was part of their family.

Also beers in Paraguay are as big as my head. Yes, of course I have my cuse koozie. Jaha.

On Sunday I went to visit some of the Jesuit Ruins of the area and then went to the “beach” along the Río Paraná. 

Me, cousin Nadia and Yohanna at the ruins. 

Beachin. 

For dinner we had my tilapia (along with three others and an 8-kilo fish that was actually what most people ate). After dinner I went with Yohanna and two of her cousins to Encarnacion’s version of the Virgen De Caacupe. We walked about 12 kilometers along the Camino a Itacúa to the sanctuary of the Virgin of Itacúa…starting at midnight. Jaha. The whole experience was so interesting and I am still trying to digest it. It started out with a couple other groups of people along the route, to Mardi Gras sized crowds so heavy that cars couldn’t get by. Upon arrival in Itacúa there were venders almost like a carnival or a fair. We arrived at about 2:30am and there had to have been tens of thousands of people there. We waited about 45 minutes in a line that barely moved to see the Sanctuary, spoiler alert: it’s a small statue of the Virgin Mary in a cave-like rock formation along the river. There were thousands of people sleeping on the lawn waiting to see it in the morning, for this it almost seemed like a music festival…without the tents. And this isn’t even the main destination for the Día del Virgen, I kept thinking, “Caacupe must be insane. THIS is insane!”. For some it is a truly religious experience, for others it’s something to do because other people are doing it. For me, as someone who likes to be a part of things, I was certainly right in the middle of one of the most significant parts of Paraguayan culture. I was incredibly glad that I had jaha’d when asked if I wanted to go for an 8 km walk that started at midnight, despite the fact that we didn’t get back until 4:30am. Words and pictures can’t describe this phenomenon, but here’s an attempt:

Cousin Cesar, Yohanna, cousin Marcia and friend walking with a mission. 

And walking…

Entrance of Itacúa. 

People sleeping, people waiting. 

Part of the waiting, at least the view was nice. Hard to tell from this photo but the moon was almost full, and those lights are Argentina. 

There she is!

The Rest of Thanksgiving Week

A little behind here, internet wasn’t working at the house on my laptop, and the wifi a the office was down.

Thanksgiving week we had a group of wonderful Global Village volunteers who gave up Thanksgiving with their families and loved ones to spend the week in Paraguay building a new home for Señor Victor, his wife Edith and their three children. I got to spend the entire week with them starting from their first meeting at the Hotel Sunday night, the entire week at the worksite to a City Tour on Saturday and on my day off went Zip-lining with them on Sunday. It was an “open” Global Village trip, which meant the volunteers were from all over the US, ages 20 to 70+ with a mix of first-time Habitaters to some who had been on 20+ Global Village builds.

Several volunteers in the group spoke some Spanish so I wasn’t as needed on site, and wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself the first day. I didn’t want to take anything away from the volunteers, but after about 30 minutes of waiting around in case anything needed to be translated between the masons and the volunteers, I got bored and picked up a shovel. I was probably equally as useful as a translator as I was for being young(er) and strong(er) and able to help with some of the heavier tasks. That being said, it definitely made for an exhausting week.

End of the week. Global Village volunteers and masons with Señor Victor, Edith and their children in front. This was barely a hole in the dirt when they started on Monday. 

Hand turkeys and thank you notes I helped the kids make for the volunteers during lunch on Thanksgiving. 

I accompanied the group to dinner Wednesday night at a harp school (something that started when the group from the St. Vrain Habitat affiliate came to Paraguay last October, and has been done with every volunteer group since!). It was a lovely evening with the owner of the school, his son the teacher, and three of their top students who were all in their early to mid-teens. They played beautifully, everything from traditional Guaraní songs to Coldplay to Billy Joel. The owner’s wife made a delicious spread of Parguayan food: Sopa Paraguaya, chipa, yuka, potato salads and carne asada on the BBQ. His daughter also performed a traditional Paraguay dance in which she balanced a glass bottle on her head while wearing a gorgeous ñandutí (Paraguayan embroidered lace) dress. After eating the volunteers had an opportunity to take their turn trying the harp. I think the best I heard from one of them was twinkle twinkle little star.

Arpa Róga.

Bottle dancing in ñandutí dress.

Thursday night was the birthday of one of the women who works at Habitat so I went out and enjoyed my Thanksgiving dinner at TGI Fridays, famous also in Paraguay for their 2 for 1 Happy Hour drink special. There were about 8 people at dinner and keeping up with their conversation in a loud restaurant was nearly impossible. Afterwards we walked to a bar in the cute neighborhood called Carmelitas that had salsa dancing and live music, but didn’t start until 11. When we got there at 9:30 it was dead, and unbelievable how many people showed up between 11 and midnight, which is when I left. Two of the volunteers from the group came out too, and as one of them put it, “it’s always fun to see how the locals shake it” literally. I was under the impression that we were going to be dancing but going to a salsa bar in Paraguay, it turns out, is for watching. I think more people may have started dancing after we left since it was so “early”.

Music at the salsa bar. 

On Saturday I accompanied the group on their city tour and to the market downtown. Some of it I had been to before and but I was able to learn more about the history of the city and had the opportunity to watch the changing of the guards at 10am on Saturday in the main plaza of the downtown area. Saturday afternoon/evening I prepared Thanksgiving dinner (see previous post). Sunday I went with some of the volunteers on an adventure tour they had scheduled (separate from the actual Habitat portion of their trip) and invited me to come along. Most of the volunteers who spoke Spanish had left by that point and it was actually great that I went because the driver didn’t speak any English, nor did the staff at the Adventure company, so I found myself thrown on the spot translating the history of zip-lining and general safety information. Afterwards we went on a short boat-ride and had lunch at a German restaurant called Alemana, famous for their pastries, bollo, which greatly resemble powdered jelly donuts.

Changing of the guards outside the Monumento a Los Heroes. 

German pastries. This one's for you, Mom. Enjoying some bollo at Alemana! 

Overall it was a great week, I don’t know that my Spanish improved a ton but I proved to be somewhat useful throughout the week and especially on Saturday and Sunday when Laura and Milena were not around. It was a busy week with tiring work during the day and events at night, which, after 3 weeks of being away from my busy life at home, I can say is just how I like to live life. There are times when I can appreciate a routine but overall I really enjoy having a plan with a plethora of things to do. #todaslascosas #allthethings

Día de Acción de Gracias

16 Steps to preparing Thanksgiving Dinner in Paraguay

1. Tell host family you would like to cook a large traditional American meal for them
2. Brainstorm with host family if there are any markets that sell Turkey
3. Research Thanksgiving menus and gather old menus from Dad
4. Translate ingredients into Spanish
5. Convert gallons, lbs, and cups into liters and kilograms for shopping purposes
6. Go to the grocery store that is farther away because it has the Turkey
7. Gather ingredients (READ: Make due with what is available) through explaining ingredients to host Mom when translation from google translate didn’t work and come to the conclusion that A) YES said ingredient exists, B) NO it does not exist in this country or C) I am unable to sufficiently explain “celery” any other way than “vegetable” “green” “long and skinny” “no leaves like lettuce”
8. Turkey basically defrosts in the car on the way home because it’s 95 degrees out with 95% humidity
9. Turn oven on. A task that is incredibly painful, see #8.
10. For cooking purposes convert cups, Tbsp, and tsp into small mug, big spoon and small spoon from the kitchen
11. Cook for 4 straight hours, covered in sweat, see #8.
12. Recruit a helper, because maybe starting to cook Thanksgiving dinner at 5pm wasn't the best idea.
13. Explain the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving using a 5-year-old’s language abilities, while trying to remember everything I knew about Thanksgiving when I was 5.
14. Explain I have no idea why Thanksgiving is the last Thursday of November, but after this experience I’d guess it has something to do with #8.
15. Go around the table and share what you are thankful for.
16. Eat (at 9pm - normal dinner time), Drink (wine without the ice and coke for today) and Be Merry! Then eat pie. 

Shopping List

This may have been the first time I'd ever cooked a Turkey

Helper Yohanna

It worked!

I am thankful for this wonderful family who have opened up their home and shared their lives with me. 

SUCCESS!

Three Miracles

Because I am selfish and uncreative, I am stealing this title from my grandmother, who used to use it to tell the story of her and my great grandparents’ escape from Nazi Germany. I realize the blog entry of my second week in Paraguay is not worthy of such a title, but it felt like three miracles.

On Monday, after another monotonous day in the office, it must have seemed like something was wrong, because during our run in the Botanic Gardens Mary asked me if I had been bored at work. I tried to respond respectfully with, it’s not that I’m bored necessarily, just that I don’t talk to anyone during the day. I think she understood immediately and expressed that she wanted me to enjoy my experience, and that if something wasn’t working we could change it. I hope that I effectively communicated that I wanted to help the affiliate wherever their need for me was most but also wanted to understand the affiliate as a whole. The next day Mary, my supervisor, Azucena, and Milena, the Volunteer Coordinator took a look at my work plan and collectively realized that I did not actually need to be in Paraguay to do any of the things on it. She said it was Milena’s idea to have me spend more time with volunteers, so I am spending the entire week of November 23^rd in the field with the Global Village team.

The whole week got better from there. I spent the majority of Wednesday with Milena and Laura getting tools from the worksites the week before and taking them to the worksite for the next week. I got to spend about 6 hours in a truck with them and learned a ton about Habitat Paraguay’s Volunteer Program, their strengths, weaknesses, and goals. It was interesting to compare volunteer programs; they were both very interested in how things work at our affiliate. Milena was especially interested since she will be leading the first ever “reverse” Global Village trip when a group of Paraguayans come to Colorado to help with Flood Recovery builds next summer. I was also able to learn some about each of them. It was great to spend the day practicing speaking Spanish, rather than just reading it.

This week my Spanish has continued to improve but group settings are still incredibly difficult for me to understand. Thursday morning (this is the day of miracles) I overhead a conversation that I was not a part of, understood what was happening, offered a solution and they took it! Miracle number one. Then someone from the family services department asked if I wanted to attend an orientation with her, so I could learn more about that side of the organization as well. I ended up having lunch with her and two other people from that department and kept up with the conversation for at least 15 minutes! Miracle two. After that the lunchroom was completely empty but rather than sitting there depressed and alone I watched the Pitch Perfect 2 trailer (thanks Lara, Laura and Melissa for each sending it to me separately). Yes, my third miracle is the Pitch Perfect 2 trailer and I am okay with that.

This week I also got the opportunity to see a several new towns including Y’pacarai, Guarambare, Limpio, Luque, and J. Agosto Saldivar (all of which I’m still working on pronouncing, specifically the first two, which are in Guaraní) between the errands for the worksites and the two family services meetings I attended. Mariene, the family services employee who took me around with her, was happy to answer my questions and shared tons of information about everything from working with the families, to the cities and towns we went through to government and policy. I had my first experience with a family that spoke almost entirely Guaraní, which still sounds like garbled vocal inflections lacking any actual pronounced syllables to me, but at least I can tell the difference between that and Spanish.

Family services orientations happen in libraries in Paraguay too!

Saturday I went with Katrina to the town of Caacupé, famous for their Basilica with the largest sanctuary in the country. December 8^th is the day of the Virgin of Caacupé in which thousands of Parguayans make the 50-kilometer pilgrimage from Asuncion to the Basilica in Caacupé to touch a statue of the Virgin Mary. The basilica was very impressive with stained glass windows and an observatory deck with a great view of the region.

Basilico de Caacupé from the front. 

Basilico from above. 

Outside the Basilico. 

Sunday I meet the Global Village team and get to start working with them on Monday!

Oh yeah, I also did this. Juegos del Hambre.  

Ciao for now!

Llegadas y Comidas

Before I left I had a conversation at work with Reuben about thinking about the question “Where will you be 2 days from now? Or a week or 10 days?”. Well, it’s been 10 days since that conversation and wow has a lot happened in those 10 days. This is my attempt to share some of the things I’ve done, thoughts, maybe #thefeels, without boring anyone or writing a novel. Upon revision, I’m sorry, it turned into a novel. If you don’t have time, I don’t blame you here are the bullet points:

• Family: I’m living the Executive Director, Mary, and her family (husband and 2 daughters in their early 20’s), they’ve been incredibly accommodating and wonderful hosts
• Work: I work in the Administrative office in the Resource Development Department researching grants and foundations in English and translating materials from Spanish into English. The translating I enjoy, I’m not finding much in the list of International Organizations and I’m glad I’m not a fulltime grant writer and get to interact with people in my job
• Language: I’m getting better quickly with the language but group settings are still a big struggle
• Weekend: This weekend I got to spend Saturday with the Global Village team of Canadian Firefighters and Sunday at a celebration for the National Military Day 

For anyone else still here (read: mom) it has certainly been an exciting, emotional and thought-provoking week.

During my stay I am living with the Executive Director of Habitat Paraguay, Mary, and her family. Her husband, Basilio, just celebrated 25 years in the Military and this week was promoted to Comandante (I’m not sure what level that relates to in the US Military, but it’s my understanding that after one year he will be at the highest level). They have two daughters, Katrina and Yohana, 23 and 21, respectively. Both live at the house, are in school and working fulltime. Mary, herself, just finished her bachelor’s degree last week and also visits her mother every day to bring her food. So, here I was coming down to Paraguay to try and learn to take it all in, live a slower life and take “me time” (some strange concept people have told me exists, but I’ve never entirely known what it means), to find myself with an one of the busiest families in the country. That’s not entirely true, this lifestyle does not seem uncommon for Paraguayan families, several of whom are working multiple jobs with long hours. Mary and Basilio have made it clear they are not a traditional Paraguayan family. Upon my arrival they offered me beer, whiskey, red wine with coke (that’s how it’s drunk down here and it’s not bad!) and I said, I think we’ll get along just fine. They also eat a lot more vegetables and don’t have red meat with every meal, which is what I had heard was the norm. That being said, when I arrived there was chicken, pork and steak on the grill for lunch, in addition to some salads.

Basilio and Mary. 

The house is bigger than I expected, especially after the 10-minute drive from the main road on a rough rocky dirt road. It is 2 stories with 3 bedrooms, living room, dining room, family room, kitchen, open garage and really nice backyard full of plants including a mango tree and a lime tree, a table that could seat up to 8 or 10, a small bar and, of course, the grill built into the stone wall.

Backyard patio with bar and grill in the back. This is where I sit and journal most nights. 

Katrina, the older daughter, also works at Habitat as one of their Architects and has been deemed my tour guide. After a nice family lunch on Sunday she took me downtown to the “centro” where we walked around a museum with some Paraguayan history and culture. We also took a fun short boat ride on the Paraguay River, which runs through the city. Back at the house I got unpacked and then, for literally the first time since I can remember, I didn’t know what to do with myself. No homework, no work, no laundry, cleaning, or cooking. The Internet was down because of a storm. The house is a little outside of the city in a smaller town called Mariano Roque Alonso and I’ve yet to approach the idea of walking around by myself. So I got out my journal and started writing. I have so far written every day but I won’t share that all here because first it’s a boring account of what I did every day and ate for every meal, and also it’s in Spanish.

Me and Katrina on the Río Paraguayo with Asunción (and our new teenage friends) in the back.

The Habitat office is not far from Mary’s house. 15 minutes with no traffic, but there’s always traffic. The workday starts at 7am and everyone is pretty much gone by 3:30 or 4pm. Quite a difference from our office with no set schedule but you can’t count on most people to be there till 9, if they’re coming in at all that day. There are 55 people who work there; so far I think I’ve got down the names of the nine people in the Resource Development and Volunteer Mobilization Department where I work, but even that has taken me all week.

This week I was working primarily on researching grants from a list of International Organizations and Foundations that have English websites to see if we should apply for any. It’s been a lot of searching without finding much and has made me really glad I’m not a fulltime grant writer and get to actually interact with people in my job. After a day and a half of just that I asked my supervisor if I could switch off between that and something else because it was starting to wear me down. She gave me some material to translate; family profiles, grant reports and applications. The last couple days went by a little faster as I started to find a balance between both tasks and with the translation I feel like I am producing something. However, despite sharing an office with the rest of the department, I still don’t really interact with anyone; staff, volunteers, donors, as a part of my job.

T-shirt exchange! New coworkers with Habitat shirts I was going to get rid of. 

At the beginning of the week I would count down until I could take my lunch break, only to discover that lunchtime in a 55-person office with everyone speaking rapidly in a language you are just learning is incredibly overwhelming. I’ve never looked forward to and dreaded something so much in my life, except maybe my driving test. One day I took lunch late to avoid the chaos but not being around anyone at all during lunch in addition to not interacting with anyone during the day just made me depressed.  

Casual horses in the Botanic Gardens. 

Almost every day after work I’ve gone for a run with Mary at the Botanic Gardens, which has felt very freeing. On Tuesday it rained all day so we couldn’t go. This was one of the days I had researched grants to little avail all day and had lunch late. I did one of my favorite boot camp workouts in the garage, then offered to make dinner because Mary had a late meeting, and made a red sauce pasta with sausage that everyone liked. While making dinner and then waiting for Mary and Yohana to get home I talked with Basilio for probably about 2½ hours, all in Spanish. I think went through at least 4 phases of group development in about 6 hours, from forming to storming, norming and performing. I always forget the last one because it doesn’t rhyme.

I’m sure it’s all just the settling in process that comes with any job…only in a new language in a new culture.

It’s amazing how quickly you can learn a language when you are living it 24/7 and have no other option. I have an app on my phone that doesn’t need wifi to work and will translate one word at a time. It has come in handy several times when I am in a conversation and can come up with enough words around what I’m trying to say. Yohana commented that she could tell I was speaking better after just 4 or 5 days. I am sure I still butcher grammar and my vocabulary is limited, but I noticed yesterday that I’ve said a couple things without thinking about every word before I said them, and realized that I said it correctly, verb conjugation and adjectives agreeing and everything.

I am able to talk with people one on one pretty well, especially when they know I am learning Spanish and speak slowly and use simple words. I’ve probably gone from understanding about 35% to 70% on this front. Where I struggle is group settings. I probably only pick up 5-10% of what two or more people are talking about when they know each other well. I am probably at about 20-25% understanding strangers or people who don’t know each other very well, as long as I understand the context. I keep telling myself this is week one and things will get better. As an extravert who recharges my own energy off of the energy of others, it’s been a challenge to have that limited.

On Saturday I spent the day on site with the Global Village team from Canada that had been on my flight from Miami to Asunción. They were a group of firefighters from Ottowa, a mix of fulltime and volunteer, young and old, men and women, plus a handful of spouses. Since it was their last day we only worked a half-day and then had a variety of activities in the afternoon. Despite the fact that I spent the majority of the morning moving sand from the road, where it had been dumped, closer to the house in broken wheelbarrows, it still felt great to sweat, get to know the volunteers and be a translator.  

Proof I did some work down here. I'm not sure why I look so awkward posing, I think that was the wheelbarrow you had to hold up with your leg. 

There was a small ceremony after lunch to recognize the families and the volunteers and all the hard work that had gone into the home. The ceremony was very nicely done. It’s always great to see how Habitat changes lives, not just of the families, but of the volunteers. I love seeing a group of mostly Habitat newbies who leave at the end of a weeklong build knowing that they’re taking back with them far more than they brought and they’ve become lifelong advocates for stabilized housing. It’s how I got involved with Habitat and with affordable housing and why I stuck around and, I guess, how I’ve ended up in Paraguay.  

Other afternoon activities included visiting a Paraguayan Fire Station, the central market, getting the best empañadas in town from the oldest restaurant in the country, and a Brazilian Steakhouse for dinner. I wasn’t intending to stay for dinner, but the volunteers invited me to come along and since I didn’t know when the next time was I would be speaking English, I was so glad I did.

It was interesting to compare the GV team’s week to mine. Even though I had been living the Paraguayan life with a Paraguayan family for a week, there were a ton of things that they knew about that I had no idea, like the 3 Paraguayan beers that are at every restaurant or why all the dogs have really short legs. They had done so much; played soccer, gone to a traditional harp concert with a bottle dancer, taken a city tour, gone out dancing and seen live music. A small part of me felt like I had missed out on something. But I remembered that they have 18 people to ask questions about the country and the culture as opposed to just me, AND they could ask things in English. The information I gather about the country is based on the limited words I can use to ask questions, and the 30-70% of what I understand when I get my answer. Regardless, my favorite part of the week by far was facilitating conversation between the volunteers and the families so they could share pictures of their kids and talk about what they do for work. I felt I had served a purpose and helped a connection between two people from very different backgrounds that would have otherwise never happened.

Part of the Canadian team with the future family of this home. 

Lastly, the name of this post is Llegadas y Comidas, which means arrivals and food, so seemed fitting for my first week. It’s also the name of the text group between me, Mary, Katrina and Yohana which is primarily about rides and most importantly, food.

Despite the look on my face, I'm enjoying some Paraguayan sopa, like cornbread, but denser and not sweet and usually with cheese. 

Snowballs

About a year ago the St. Vrain Habitat Global Village Team returned from a weeklong build in Paraguay. They had a wonderful experience and enjoyed getting to know the culture and the people who worked for the local affiliate. And then Julie had a snowball. For those who are unfamiliar with Julie and her snowballs they usually go something like this: Julie has an idea. Julie's idea quickly gains momentum. Julie recruits other people to be a part of her idea and (for better or worse) it either turns into a snowman or an avalanche. And now I'm sitting on the back porch of a house in Paraguay writing a blog about how to say cheers in Guaraní and wondering which it will be, a snowman or an avalanche. Did I skip a few steps? Snowballs sometimes do. (Background info: Julie is in charge of International Development at St. Vrain Habitat and at one point, actually wanted a snowball graphic as part of a powerpoint presentation we were working on, which is where the term "snowball" officially started).

What I am actually doing here in Paraguay is part of an exchange. St. Vrain Habitat has been sending money to Habitat Paraguay as a part of their International tithe program for many years. After the Global Village trip we decided to deepen this relationship and provide an opportunity for both affiliates to learn more about the other through an exchange of staff members. The Development Director from Habitat Paraguay, Raquel, will spend 2 months in Colorado doing parts of my job and using her skills to recruit Hispanic volunteers for St. Vrain Habitat while I spend 6 weeks in Paraguay learning Spanish, translating materials, researching English-based foundations with international funding and recruiting volunteers. 

I spent three weeks with Raquel teaching her parts of my job and dividing up other parts for others to help with so she also has time to recruit Hispanic volunteers. It's a weird thing to teach someone else how to do your job, especially someone of technically higher ranking but with the English knowledge of a 4-year-old. Just that piece alone is a good exercise for anyone to go through, if for nothing else it made me realize how much I do without thinking. During this time we collectively came to the realization that I was not going to be able to completely unplug for 6 weeks. I told people that I would still have access to e-mail and they could contact me if they needed anything but I did not want to spend more than an hour/day responding to e-mails about things back at home.

I think my favorite e-mail from my first day away came, not from Raquel asking about something related to scheduling volunteers, not from my intern or the AmeriCorps I manage, but from someone asking my opinion on what to do about lunch for volunteers at a meeting. Last time I checked I was neither a personal assistant nor a lunch lady, but I guess I have performed both of these duties in the past, so why not "Just ask Nicole"? Well, LMGTFY. Maybe for the next 6 weeks you can figure out how to order a pizza.

-- 
I promise this weekend I’ll write something about actually being in Paraguay.

şerefe

This one time I went to Turkey. In May. I didn't write any blogs about it because it wasn't a service-related trip. Plus I was doing schoolwork while we were there. And work work. And things were busy. And I was with my mother who I'm pretty sure is the only one who reads these posts. 

But that's no excuse. It was an incredible trip with the family and our wonderful tour guide, long-time friend and soccer enthusiast, Mustafa. We witnessed an interesting mix of cultures in Istanbul; modern meets tradition, east meets west, Muslims and Christianity literally under the same roof. Followed by 4 days in the mystical capadoccia where we learned about ancient civilizations, hiked through the love valley of naturally penis-shaped sand sculptures 3-4 stories tall and ate our faces off. 

That is an incredibly short version of the wonderful 10-day trip to a fascinating country with a great family friend. But I couldn't continue with Paraguay without including cheers in Turkish...which is şerefe. 

Here's a picture of me and Hilary on Mustafa's company's 2-story yacht on the Bosphorus with beermosas...Before she dislocated her shoulder and I popped it back in. 

şerefe.

Tomorrow I'll write something about the country I'm actually in.