Oct 30

For those of you who asked: no I will not be home for Christmas. I would, but I am not supposed to leave my site for the first three months after training and not supposed to have visitors until then either. Actually, I am not sure where I will be, but I am getting my two year assignment in three weeks from now or so. About half of my group is going to a rural area and the other half to an urban area. Yesterday we took a 20 min oral exam in Guarari which was pretty intense, but I think I did about as well as the rest of the group.

Anyway, I am still planning on coming home for Joe’s wedding next July, but likely not before then. Any of you are welcome to come to Paraguay or surrounding countries anytime after March. I know Greg and Kyle were talking about a ski trip sometime, but might wait a year.
In case you were wondering about the other people I work with every day: the environmental Education group that lives in the same community as me consists of 11 people who are pretty diverse and interesting. All of us are 22-28 years old except one woman who is in her 50’s. She has a law degree, was a teacher, and is fluent in Spanish due to her Cuban heritage. Yesterday she moved households because her host family did not really seem interested in having her in their house and did not really interact with her at all.
Other Peace Corps Trainees in my community include a Southern boy who plays the banjo, a Hawaiian, and a few Midwesterners. There is a girl in the group who went to Grad School at the University of Denver. Many of the group have some sort of science degree. Only one person has been sick so far. He had stomach problems (likely from food poisoning) and could not go to the National Park that we visited, he is fine now. Lots of us have various mosquito or bug bites. There is an insect called pika, that lives on floors and burrow into the skin of your feet then lays its eggs. It sounds gross, but most people just have a nurse pick the eggs out or do it themselves.
Besides language, we have been learning about a wide variety of topics including, farming practices, teaching techniques, forest ecology and biology, integration techniques, alternative gardening practices, and anything related to development.