No pude creer que hoy estaba presentando a 26 alumnos en un colegio

The title says: I can´t believe that today, I was presenting to 26 students in a high school! En serio! (Seriously!) In Spanish! But I did. And I did it well. I thought so and the profesora who sat in the back and evaluted me thought so too. :)

I was so worried. I had written out everything I was going to say and how I was going to do it, and the whole time, I have been pissed that I have to do this, since I haven´t written out what I was going to say for a presentation since I was in high school (or maybe early on in college). It´s one of my skills, to be able to get up in front of just about anyone, any number of people and talk about whatever. And here I was, going to talk about self esteem and the importance of working hard and I was so scared.

But, It was great! I was able to use humor and kid with them and explain things well. They participated and other than the fact that a few times I couldn´t understand what they were saying to me and had to ask another student to scribe on the whiteboard for me so I could stop looking like an idiot, it was so good! Yay. I now officially believe I can teach stuff in site.

I know my Spanish is advancing, because the other night, for over an hour, I talked with my host mom about my sister´s interracial marriage and was able to explain the nuances of why it is not that weird in the US for this to happen. She was particularly interested in how my sister would raise her kids in a different religion than her own. She also loved the stories about the amazing 4 day wedding and really loved the part about the Catholic preist throwing a fit. :) And, I was able to understand every word of her story about the time she was in college and she and a friend took out the friend´s father´s car without permission and scratched the roof all to hell and painted it with 10 bottles of white nail polish...he didn´t notice for a week and they totally got away with it. Great night. I´m so pleased with myself that I can talk for an hour about complicated stuff in another language. I´ve wanted this for so long.

Tomorrow at 3 p.m., they are going to hand me a folder with information about where my new home is going to be. I will get onto email on Saturday sometime to post info about it, so stay tuned. I´m so excited. I can´t wait to find out. Only one of the seven of us in my group will be a "follow up volunteer", going to a site where there has been a volunteer before. That site is Yuty, the place I visited last week. The rest of us will get a new site where we get to create whatever we find out they want or need with no preconcieved notions of Peace Corps. I´m pretty sure I´m NOT going to Yuty, because it´s just not the right place for me, so vamos a ver! (We will see!)

¿Que mas? I promised more about people. My sister who is 10 is such an amazing kid. She is a natural actress, often putting on little funny skits in the kitchen with false teeth or crazy sunglasses or more. She just breaks out in song, randomly, and often imitates Michael Jackson or the Matrix apropos of nothing. It´s hilarious. We play Uno a lot and watch the Simpsons all the time. I´m just starting now to be able to understand what the Spanish-speaking Bart, Lisa, Marge and Homero (as he´s known here) are saying. It´s a little victory when I can get a whole scene. She and I laugh together a lot. I keep thinking how great it would be if I suddenly was able to make a lot of money and when she´s 18 and I´m 41, I could invite her to come for a month to the US and could pay for it all. I´d love to give that to her. I of course would never mention this to them, though.

I have taken to doing my own laundry. I put it all in a bucket in the bathroom and use the cool laundry soap I bought in Yuty for a mil ($.17). I liked doing my own laundry this way in Thailand, too. I´m a weirdo. I had to stop in Thailand because I didn´t have enough time. I was working so many hours there. But, here, I´ll be able to. We´ll see. If I can make friends with someone like the woman in Yuty who has a machine, I´m prolly gonna end up paying. Vamos a ver sobre este, tambien.

I have totally begun to study Guarani. Here´s a little taste.

Che areko mokoi ermanos Estados Unidospe. Che aiko Itápe Paraguaype. Che sy ko´ape oreko mokoi memby. Che aikota Paraguaipe por mokoi ano.

Okay, that says: I have 2 siblings in the United States. I live in Ita in Paraguay. My mother here has two kids. I am going to live in Paraguay for 2 years.

Construction is that the "a" in front of "reko" makes it the first person. The "o" in front of "reko" makes it the third person. The "ta" after the "ko" means future. The "pe" after a place means "in". It´s really interesting. I love the structure. I totally understand it. But, the pronunciation is so hard. I´m getting it though. If I can speak a little, it´ll help.

¿Que mas? I know nothing about the news. I have been only paying the slightest attention to the middle east and the senate vote about abortions and other things. I really know nothing. Anyone who wants to send along a little news sound bite now and then, I´d much appreciate it. I do know that the damn Big Dig is falling to crap, though. Amazing. And we think the infrastructure here is a mess. Jeez.

I am still patiently awaiting the cold winter weather, although I will admit the 90 degree heat does dry my laundry in only 3 hours or so. Quite convienent. Giant apples only cost a mil ($.17) and a big ol´pear only 1500G ($.25). But remember, I only earn $2.44 a day right now. Hee hee.

Tomorrow we are going on little cultural trips to different towns that are arty where we can buy hammocks or ao´poi, which are traditional Paraguayan shirts. That should be fun. I think they are only doing it to distract us from worrying about finding out our sites at 3.

Much love and missing. My first bout of homesickness has passed and I´m well now. Done with training, but well. Tell all your orientation staffs that they should be glad their damn training isn´t for 11 weeks! Jeez.