First week of route

The past week or so have been very eventful. One of my last nights in community before the volunteers arrived I spent at a party for the Festival of San Juan, one of Paraguay's most cherished saints. I asked who he was and what he did and got no good answer, however. At the party I got to witness about 20 people lighting palm fronds on fire and using them as sparklers as they ran around shaking burning sticks at each other yelling, "VIVA SAN JUAN". Here are some pictures from my communities.

So, food. Here it comes fried with a side of yuca, or mandioca. My favorite snack is called "tortilla" (not what we can tortillas) and is a fried dough made of eggs, flour, and lettuce.


"Bocadito" means little snack. I ate like a thousand of these chocolates.

Here's some kids lugging my gear around. This community had so few Spanish speakers we actually decided to not send volunteers there. They're pretty precious though.
Typical looking Paraguayan house.

After the volunteers arrived in Asunción we took them to Santaní where we put them into partnerships and taught them how to build stoves which will be their main project while they're here. Here's Noah, another supervisor and me riding in the back of a truck of bricks.



Some lovely volunteers making stoves



Adam, another supervisor and me making a scary face


My volunteers! Julia, Laura, Maya, Daniela, Zane and Marco: my soldiers who have already been making me proud this summer.

Daniela and Maya heading off to their community.


We had a day after volunteer briefing to relax which happened to be FOURTH OF JULY. Some other staff and I went to eat hamburgers to celebrate our homeland which were served to us in individual plastic bags and were disgusting :(


I share a room in my staff house with three other girls during the weekend and during the week we're out visiting our volunteers. Here's my stuff on the floor...we sleep on cots and in the most warm sleeping bags ever! It's around 40 ish in the mornings and at night.