I don't know if I will ever be able to get used to the idea that it is 95 degrees on Christmas. All the years spent sledding, skiing and playing in snow banks over break are hard to erase. But on the other hand I could really get used to eating watermelon for Christmas.
I spent Christmas with my friend Raquel's family. Instead of decorating Christmas trees here they make "Pecebres" (nativity scenes) and decorate them with palm tree flowers, chipa, watermelon, pineapples or other in season fruits, and lights. On the 23rd I went to help Raquel make the pecebre. First we had to go cut some pieces do sod for the base and then we trimmed them into a more or les rectangular shape and put all the figurines in place. On Christmas Eve I headed over to her house in the early evening to help prepare dinner. We ate around 10:30 and then waited around until midnight, listening to fire crackers and the neighbors blaring music, so we could say Merry Christmas. At midnight everyone sets off tons of fire works, mostly pretty small ones, but a few people set off what look like professional ones in the states. No regulations on fireworks here.
New years was fairly similar to Christmas. I spent it at my neighbors. Every year there is a huge town party and my neighbor, Mirian, and I had been talking about going for a while, but by about 11:00pm we were both pretty tired and didn't feel like going to the party. We stayed up until midnight to wish everyone happy new year and I was in bed by 12:30am.
Last week I organized another day camp for the kids in my community. I had about 12-15 kids each day which was such more manageable number than the 25-30 I had at the last camp. We made shakers from toilet paper tubes, wallets from milk cartons, collages using sticks, leaves, flowers and mud, and pencil holders from tin cans. There is no trash removal service here let alone a recycling so I save pretty much all my garbage in hopes I can use if for something. I was so happy to get rid of a lot of the garbage that had been piling up.
In the beginning of December we had our Mid-service training. We just had a few meetings and a medical and dental checkup. It happened to work out that my host brother from training was having his graduation ceremony the day our training ended so I decided to go because I was in the area. It was much different than a graduation in the states. I think a good way to describe it is a very fancy picnic. We arrived around 8:30pm and we brought our dinner with us. Each family has a table reserved. The principal of the school spoke along with a couple of students and then they presented the diplomas. Then there is a presentation of the graduates. All the girls are in formal dresses, usually escorted by their fathers and the boys in suites with their mothers as escorts. Then they dance. Once everyone has a chance to dance with the graduates and take pictures, the party begins. The disco lights come on, the cumbia music gets cranked up far to loud and the place becomes a club. We left around around 3:30am, which apparently was early. I think that was mostly because my 7 year old host sister and I were falling asleep.
Graduation ceremony
As it turns out December was the month of parties and celebrations, apart from Christmas. The 8th is the Day of the Virgin on Caacupe. There was an appearance of the virgin near the river just out side my community so they built a shrine there. They decorate it and everyone goes there to pray. After Christmas on the 28th a friend celebrated her 15th birthday. It went very late. I left just before 2:00am and they still hadn't cut the birthday cake.
Samantha and me
Some of you may remember from a while back I was working on making a chair out of old tires. We got something that is suitable, but still needs a lot of adjustments, all of which require power tools. I don't own the necessary tools and after many failed attempts to barrow some I decided I was going to try to make a chair that didn't require power tools. After a few minutes on YouTube I found just the thing. The chair, with out the arm rests only took about 20 minutes to construct and after I figured out how to attach the arms, the chair in the video didn't have arms, they took about half an hour to put on. I attached them by poking holes in the tires and threading wire through them. Believe it or not the only tools I used were a pocket knife and some pliers.
Now for just a few house keeping items. I finally finished the flower bed in front of my house and planted a few flowers. I also hung some plants outside to green the place up a little.
