Just an Update...

So I went on a really cool trip last weekend but the internet had been really slow and won't let me upload pictures. :( I'm hoping the problem will be fixed soon because I have done so much cool stuff lately and I really want to share it with you guys!

Plus in T-minus 7 hours I will be heading out to explore the Chaco with AFS, so I am bound to take bunches of pictures and will want to upload those as well!

Anyways, so this is just to let you guys know why I have updated (my mom has been hounding me about it...Hi mom!) and also to let you know that I will be updating probably monday or tuesday with pictures and all! :)
Hope everyone is doing well back home, all of my friends just got out of school for the summer and I am a little jealous (school here can be REALLY boring) but then I remember that I am in Paraguay and it is 100+ degrees there and I just want to laugh in their faces and hope my family does't go bankrupt from running the AC all summer.

Have a great weekend!

-Erin

Hey I just got one picture to upload yay! This is a preview of a video I want to show you. :D

This blog entry is about all of the amazing friends I have made in Paraguay so far!

<--This is Melissa. She is 17, loves Victorious, One Direction, and dancing. She is also an acrobat! Have you ever been to one of those Cirque du Soleil shows? Well she does that kind of stuff, which so cool! She wants to studying abroad in the U.S. next year, and we are hopefully going to meet up! 

<--This is Atenea, She's 17 too. She is always smiling and has perfect handwriting! The other day she asked me if she could dye my hair black…as you can tell from the picture that didn’t happen!

<--This is Sol! She's also 17...now that I think about, I am pretty sure all of the people I hang out with are 17!

Anyways, Sol spent a few months in England earlier this year, so she know what it's like to be an exchange student. She is always helping me with my spanish, especially in the beginning when people would be talking to me and asking questions and I had understood literally nothing, she would explain everything to me in really simple terms (in Spanish). Other people would just give up and tell me in English which was not helpful!

Claudia is the one on the left in the front row. She loves to play basketball, almost never comes to school and she is always making fun of the little things I do that are different. She is really funny and outgoing person and she can always make me laugh.

<---This is Gonazlo. He is probably one of the funniest people I have met since being here. He is like a five year old stuck inside the body of a teenager! When he talks he slurs a lot of his words so for the first two months I was here whenever he said anything someone else would have to repeat it to me because I had no idea what he was saying!

<--This is Sebastian (the one on the left), he was one of the first people I met when I came here. He is super nice and he is always offering to help me with stuff. He sometimes tries to speak English with me but all he knows are bad words, so the conversations are always really funny! He wants to go to the U.S. for college or an exchange year. :)

<--See that guy behind my host sister? That's Rafa. (Not sure why I don't have any other pictures of him...)  He is pretty much fluent in English so every so often we will have a conversation in English or he will make some comment in English and I always burst out laughing and everyone looks at us like we are crazy! He is also really patient when I try to speak Spanish, even when I stand there for two minutes trying to make a sentence make sense. He is one of the friendliest people I have met here. :)

<--This is Bernhard. He’s a German foreign exchange here with AFS. He’s only 15 but as tall as a skyscraper! But that's how all the European foreign exchange students here are, I always feel so short!

Anyways...so he goes to my school (he's a grade below me) and his house is about a 10-minute walk from mine. We have become really good friends over these past few months, it’s so nice to have someone to talk to that is going through the same stuff as you. He's been here for almost a year and in leaving in June. :( 

<--This is Kate. She’s an exchange student from the U.S. too! She lives about 30 minutes away in a city called Luque. I’m so glad that she’s here; it’s always so nice to hang out with her because we are going through similar experiences and she understands what it’s like. We’re missing the same things, learning the same language, not wanting to leave, thinking about what's going to happen once we get back to the states, sharing stories, laughing about the differences between the U.S. and Paraguay. It’s also a relief to speak English once in a while!

I have obviously met a lot of people being here and this is only a handful of them (the ones that I hang out with the most). I haven't met anyone here that I haven't liked. When people ask me what my favorite thing about Paraguay is my answer is always "the people". The way interact with each other and the way they treat me, I just love it so much! Everyone is incredibly nice and friendly!

Chau!

My new home

Today marks three months since I arrived in Paraguay, which also means that I have exactly three months left! Ughhh I don’t want to leave!

These past three months have been some of the best of my life. Not a day goes by where I regret making the decision I did to come here.

Of course this trip hasn’t been all sunshine and daisies. I have had my bad days. The ones where all I want to do are cry and go home. Days where I wonder why I came here in the first place. But at the end of the day I know I made the right decision.

Some mornings I wake up and look around and can’t believe I am here and how lucky I am to have this opportunity.

When people ask me if I miss home all I can think is “Yes…but this is my home too.” And it is. It’s hard to imagine that in 3 months time I will be back in Tucson thinking over the time I spent here and wanting to rewind time, wishing I could go back to the place that I was lucky enough to call my home. Even though I won’t be living here anymore, I know that it will always be my home away from home.

As some of you may now when I first applied to be an exchange student, Paraguay was not even on my radar. I had my heart set on France and when I didn’t get in I was beyond crushed. My parents kept telling me that everything happens for a reason but I couldn’t wrap my mind around how something like that could happen for a reason.

But now I know that they were right. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else but right here. I love (love actually isn’t a strong enough word) everything about Paraguay and I know even from being here just three months that I am a better person. I have a new outlook on the world, a new way of looking at everything. Paraguay has changed me for the better.

<---This is a picture from a waterfall I went to a few weeks ago! It was beautiful! (Sorry for the random picture, just thought this entry needed some!)

They say that by living abroad you become fluent in the other language after about three or four months. When I heard this I can remember thinking ‘That’s impossible! I have been taking French for over two years and am still no where near fluent!” But now I know that they were right.

Of course I am not completely fluent but I can understand almost everything that people say and not have to think about what they said or how I have to respond. It comes naturally now. Just like having a conversation in English (ok not exactly, but really similar). I no longer have to translate things into Spanish I can just what I want without thinking about it. Which makes me insanely happy! :D

However, I have still had a couple of bumps along the way.

1.) I am still having trouble conjugating verbs but getting better at it every day.

2.) Paraguay has two official languages: Spanish and Guarani. The indigenous people originally spoke Guarani before the explorers came over from Spain. Paraguay is the only country in Latin America to have maintained their native language! And although this is extremely cool, it also makes learning the language a lot harder because people mix Guarani into the everyday language. I only know a few words in Guarani:

a.) Mba'éichapa (pronounced like byachapay) hello, how are you?

b.) Jaha (pronounced like jayha)-let’s go

c.)  Japiro (pronounced like it looks) and che raku (shay haku) but those are bad words so I’m not gonna translate, sorry!

3.) I have also made up some of my own words (In my defense I thought they were real).

a.) Justo-I thought that it it was“just” turns out it’s “solo”.

b.) Dificultitio-I thought that was how you said “difficult” it’s actually “difícile”.

 c.) Actualemente-I thought it was  “actually” but it’s really “en realidad”

I went about saying these (some more recent than I would like to admit) and people didn't say anything! 

Like “justo”. I was talking to my host mom about three weeks into the program and said it and she just looked at me like I was crazy and asked me what it meant. My host sister was there and she burst out laughing. I asked her if that was how you said “just” and she said no and that she understood me when I said it so she didn’t correct me! My friends make fun of me for it along with all of my other make believe words.

<---These are some cookies my host sister and I made they other day. They didn't have cookies cutters so we had to improvise! :)

Soooo…that’s it for now! I actually cried while writing this, thinking about leaving just makes me so sad!

I am actually thinking of posting everyday this week to make up for all the times I haven’t posted. No promises though! But just out of curiosity is there anything that you guys would like me to write about or have any questions? Feel free to email me or comment!

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer heat!

Chau!

<---One Direction CD at a bookstore! It made me SO happy! :D

Mi Familia de Paraguay!

Hello everyone!

So this blog entry is going to be all about my family and here in Paraguay. Enjoy!

In my family here I have a mom, dad, sister, brother, and a dog!

That’s my host mom, Susana. She is studying to be a lawyer. She makes dinner for us every night. She is always making sure I have enough food to eat, that I am awake in the mornings, if I am feeling okay, if I need anything. She is always trying to explain things using hand motions but they are always really random and obscure and she just ends up making really word noises and I never understand any of it, but I always get a good laugh out of it. :)

That’s my host dad, Carlos. He is an accountant and works in Ciudad Del Este, so every Tuesday he takes a 1-hour plane ride there, he spends the week there and then comes back on Friday. He reminds me a lot of my real dad because he is really funny and they wear the same types of clothes.








That’s my host sister, Jackie. She is 17 and in the same class as me at school. She is a really friendly and nice person. I was really lucky that she spoke English, because when I first got here I didn’t understand anything and she helped me out so much!  She really likes One Direction (as do I :) so we spend hours on the computer together watching videos and hanging out. (Yes I realize we are dorks.)

That’s my host brother, Carlos but he we call him Carlitos (it's like Carlos Jr.). He’s 19. I don’t see him a lot because he goes to college and has a job but here in Paraguay people stay living with their parents until they get married (normally). He spent a semester in London last year so he speaks some English as well. He is obsessed with a soccer club here; Olimpia, and I always hear him yelling at the TV.
(Sorry I don't have a better photo, like I said he isn't around a lot.)

And this is Ozzie! (My cousin Franco locked him in here) He is about 8 months old and really hyper. He isn’t allowed inside except during meals (seems a little backwards to me but whatever.) He is obsessed with attacking me and biting my feet. But he is so fluffy and cute and I love him!

And of course what would a family be without aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. My host mom's family lives in another city about 6 hours away so I have yet to meet them but my host dad's side of the family all live in or around Asuncion (the capital).

I have six cousins.







<---This is Gaston, he's ten, he is really sweet and always smiling. (Not a great picture but he is never sitting still!)

Ferran and Sergi are twins and are 13. They don’t look anything alike though. They both play soccer. And that's Joaquin he's ten and insanely polite but also insanely crazy.

Patti is Joaquin's younger sister, she's nine and is very sweet, hyper, and always laughing.

That's Franco he's Gaston's little brother, he's five. He is constantly running around and making silly faces. He always steals my camera and takes photos of himself.

And then there are all the aunts and uncles.
Machi and Jorge are Franco and Gaston's parents.

Mechi Edu and Patti and Joaquin's parents

Albi-Jordi are Sergi and Ferran's parents.

And last but not least there is Tata, she's the grandmother. She is very sweet and is always smiling.



From left to right: Albi, Jackie, Noe (second cousin), Mechi, Me, Machi, Tata, and Susana

Left to right: (back row): Jorge, Susana, Me, Jackie, Carlos, Edu. (front row): Tata, Mechi, Machi, Albi, Jordi.












So that's my family! I am really lucky to have to the family that I do. I know so many exchange students who don't get along with their siblings or parents and are having major problems and I am just so grateful that I got the family that I did. They are amazing and I am thankful for all they do for me!