My First Paraguayan Wedding

Saturday nights I am usually at home watching a movie on my computer or trying to reading yet another book, but this past weekend I had the opportunity to attend my first Paraguayan wedding. My contact Julio got married on Saturday night. The wedding was probably not the ¨traditional¨ Paraguayan wedding due to the fact that it was held at a Baptist Church, but it gave me an idea of what they are like. First off the wedding was supposed to start at 7. I, being the typical American, arrived about 10 minutes early only to find that the Church doors where still closed and they were not quite done preparing everything inside. The wedding actually got underway at about 8 pm. It started with the civil proceedings and then the religious ceremony. For the civil ceremony both the bride and groom must have two witnesses each that can testify that they are single and can therefore marry. The religious ceremony seemed much like any non-Catholic ceremony in the States. After the wedding we proceeded to an outdoor reception hall which was like a really nice big pavillion. There the couple took pictures and there was a buffet dinner. The bride tossed her bouquet and there were cake pulls. After the cake was cut by the couple, they didn´t shove into each other´s faces, the party was over. It was kind of disappointing because I was looking forward to dancing. The wedding in its entirety lasted only about three hours. Can you imagine? That definitely wouldn´t fly with my family!

Geography Camp

So after one day of intensive planning and three days of chaos my geography camp has come to an end. I had about 70 kids come in all, 25-35 at a time. Even with the help of another volunteer it was rough. The kids were rowdy and didn´t really want to listen, but I am hoping that they got something out of it. We were unable to finish the World Map, but I am hoping to work on it over the next week and possibly finish it up. I am putting up pictures from the camp on the Flickr site. Next week I plan to take a break and relax a little bit. We´ll see if that actually happens!

Two Months In Site- What am I Doing?

So I have been in my site for two whole months now! Can you believe it? Only 22 months left... yes that means I am still counting. So what have I been up to? Tons of stuff! My main contact is the community center/after-before school program and I go there almost daily to do work. What type of work? Some days I am tutoring kids other days I am helping to serve snacks to the kids and others I am working on our new garden. Garden? With the youth group I formed at the community center we have cleaned an area and prepped it for a vegetable producing garden. Which we will hopefully be planting soon. We have youth group every Saturday morning at the community center and we have been doing some random fundraisers to start out with. I am also teaching computer classes at an elementary school two days a week. There are about twenty classes in all which is really overwhelming. We are on winter vacation for the next two weeks and I have planned, or am in the process of planning, a three-day day camp for the kids at the community center. They'll be learning about geography and some American culture. The theme came to me when one of the kids pointed to a map of Paraguay and asked me to show her where my county is located. I have another volunteer coming to help me with the camp and on the last day we will be painting a large World Map as a project. I can't wait! After winter break is over I will be teaching cooking classes to some of the mothers from the center. That should be interesting. We will be cooking without meat and Paraguayans are not exactly open to the idea. But it will help to reduce food costs and improve their health so I am going for it! So other than that I attend meetings for some other youth groups in the area and accompany my host mother on an hour walk nightly to sell sandwiches at a night school. I haven't been nearly as bored as I thought I might be. Living in a big city there's always something to do!