Adventures With Kendra

Over a year in Paraguay I finally had my first visitor from the US.  I know it may seem like I have just been vacationing for the past month, but we did do some work while she was here.

After something like a grueling 27 hours of travel, where almost everything that could go wrong went wrong, Kendra finally made it to Paraguay.  We spent the first couple of days in Asunción and we also went and visited my first host family before heading to my little town of Gral. Morinigo.  

Something that Kendra brought to my attention was the name of my town.  I realized for those of you who don't speak Spanish you may not know that Gral. is the abbreviation for general.  So just to clear things up the full name of my town in General Morinigo. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

We spent a few days in my town checking out the sites, meeting my friends and eating typical Paraguayan food.  

I am cutting frozen cheese with a saw to make chipa guasu.

Before Kendra arrived I had made plans to make a tire chair with another friend, but because of bad weather I never got the chance, so while Kendra was here we went and made a tire chair.  My friend was really excited about it and said that she was going to get some paint the next day and paint it.  From many experiences I know that this isn't always the case so I was extremely excited to see the next day, when I passed her house, she had not only painted the chair we made together, but made and painted a second chair.  Unfortunately when I went back to visit after Kendra left the chairs had already fallen apart.  We modified them a little from the first one I made and it turns out they weren't as sturdy.  

Unfortunately we had a rainy day and weren't able to do much. We really wantded to climb the mountain near my house and the forecast wasn't look good; 90% chance of rain for the next three days. We woke up Friday morning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  We decided to ignore the forecast and chance it climbing the mountain.  Fortunately we did because it was a beautiful day an not a drop of rain fell.  I have been up the mounting a couple times before but this time was extra adventurous.  Every 50 feet of so there was a huge spider web with a huge, mean looking spider in it blocking the trail.  It slowed us down a bit to have to duck and weave to avoid getting tangled in the webs but we made it to the top.  Kendra wanted to eat sugar cane.  We cut some from a field at the base of the mountain but it wasn't very good.  I found out later it was a different variety, not the sweet kind they use to make sugar.  They just grow it to feed cows.

The following day we had lunch at my friend Raquel's house and then hopped on a bus to Villarrica to check out Carnaval.  The night consisted of listening to samba music, watching very scantily clad women and men dancing and getting sprayed with foam.  I had imagined that things would be really crazy with tons of people in the crowd, but it wasn't so bad. I learned later that we weren't in the "hot zone" where things do get a little crazy.  We still got a good show with out all the craziness.

From Villarrica we headed to a nice little town called La Colmena.  It is a Japanese colony and we stayed an a cute hotel run by a Japanese family who cooked delicious Japanese food.   In the morning we headed out to Salto Cristal, a waterfall near La Colmena.  To get there we took an hour truck drive through huge sugar cane fields.  We could drive almost all the way to the falls, we only walked a few hundred feet and then scramble a few hundred feet down over boulders.  They put in a rope to hang on to.  We were the only two there which was really nice.  It looked like it was threatening to rain, but we waited a bit and the clouds blew over and it warmed up enough to swim. 

On our way back home from La Colmena we went back through Villarrica. We had some time before our bus left so we went to see some carpinchos.  My friend said you can pat them, but when Kendra tried it ran away.  

When we returned to my house the next day we stocked up on food and supplies for Kendra because I had to go to Paraguay Verde camp and she was going to stay in my house by herself.  Kendra doesn't speak much Spanish, let alone Guaraní, so my neighbors had fun trying to communicate with her while I was gone.  With the help of a dictionary and a few texts they managed to inviter her over to help make empanadas and bean salad.

This time Paraguay Verde camp was in a town called Ayolas in southern Paraguay.  Because of the bus schedules I, along with another volunteer and two youth, left at 1:30 am.  We got into asuncion around 5:30am and were planning on taking a bus to Ayolas at 6:30, but being typical Paraguay it turned out that bus doesn't run anymore so we had to wait until 9:00am.

Near Ayolas is a dam called Yacyreta.  It is located on the Paraná River, which divides Paraguay and Argentina.  We stayed in the housing they built to for the workers while there were building the dam.  They aren't used any more except for a few offices so they have an old abandoned feeling.  Unfortunately they were doing repairs on the dam so we didn't get the full tour, but we did get to walk around the dunes which formed naturally after they built the levy.  

The huge pots they used to cook for probably thousands of workers.

While we were planning the camp my bosses saw my tire chair and loved it.  They asked my to teach a session on making one during the camp. Because of the bus delay I missed the session,  but fortunately there was time in the evening to teach it.   I also taught a few people during free time the following day.  I invited two girls from my town to go to the camp, but they couldn't got.  Because of this, and the fact that Kendra was visiting, I only stayed one night at the camp instead of two.  

Kendra took the bus by herself from Gral. Morinigo to Asuncion and I met up with her in the terminal in Asuncion.  It was nice to have one last full day in Asunción before she flew back home.