Roads, driving, etc.

Yes, that's a tree, in the middle of the road. It is a frequent site here - great for the environment, but one of the many things that adds to the excitement of driving around here. Can you see the pavement in front of the tree? Here's a close up:

When you add the fact that there is seemingly no drainage system for the roads, it makes for some very interesting driving, both when it rains and after it rains (the pot holes are amazing). Our street is made out of this material, as are MANY others in Asuncion.

Then you add the other vehicles on the road:

Yes, these are a frequent site all over the area in which we live!

So, the other interesting aspects are the rules of the roads. In our neighborhood, there are many intersections where there are no stop signs. On the main roads, there are lights where you can turn left, but many others where you can't. At the later, the normal custom is to go past the intersection and make a U-turn. Not so fun when the car we've rented has no power steering! I've driven a few times, but I'll be glad when our car arrives so I can get a little more accustomed to the driving here (we've only been renting a car on the weekends and most of the time, John drives).

How do you say "Baby Shower" in Spanish?

Exactly the same way as you do in English, but with a Spanish accent! I had the pleasure of attending one a week ago last Friday, for the one of the wives of one of John's colleagues. It was a tea at 4 in the afternoon, at a place where people have teas for such occasions (or birthdays or other occasions). While quite a few of the women speak nearly perfect English, the event was all in Spanish (except the car ride there and back). It was good practice for me, though at times it was impossible to follow the conversation. The ladies were animated enough that they could make me laugh even when I couldn't follow the conversation!

Unfortunately, I was checking back in with John at around 6:30 only to find out that I had mistakenly taken both sets of keys with me! I was in a dead spot at the party place, so I hadn't received his phone calls. Fortunately another woman who was leaving the party early was able to give me a ride home because the plan had been that John and the girls were going out to a restaurant for dinner (at 7 since that's when the restaurants open for dinner) but they couldn't leave until I got home with the keys. So, I missed the gift opening, but probably had followed about as much Spanish as my brain could handle for an afternoon. I look forward to the day when I can understand more!

It arrived, but...

lots of things that I was hoping would be in it (our air shipment) weren't. Like hangers, plastic containers, socks that go with the one pair of closed shoes besides sneakers that I brought, or another pair of closed shoes! (I brought black shoes and brown socks. It was pretty hard to pack for winter in the beginning of summer!) Then there are the things that we did pack that we didn't really need because of things we do have in the house or things that won't work (for example, I love the coffee pot that the Embassy is lending us and our cookie trays won't fit in our too small oven). I hope I get better at packing for future posts! Though, as Abigail put it, we still may want some of the things for our next house that will be completely different!

The girls happily played and unpacked all afternoon and are enjoying their Life game that arrived. We've had a great time playing the games we did bring (Monopoly Deal, Set, and Skip-Bo - all small card games that fit easily in a suitcase), but they were getting a bit tired of playing the same games since we've played so much!

School!

Well, after much discussion, debate, and prayer, we have decided to send Arianna to school here for 8th grade. She will be attending Asuncion Christian Academy, which starts tomorrow (Thursday - I'm actually posting this Wed. the 28th) at 7 am (the early start both in terms of school year and school day were not good selling points for Arianna). The school takes a short break in the winter (now) and a longer break in the summer (at Christmas), which is why it starts so early.

The school reminds me a lot of Sojourn Academy which the girls attended when we lived in Costa Rica. Arianna loved her teacher there, and one of the things that has helped her to at least accept our decision is that she has met several of the teachers and they have all been very nice. It seems to be a warm community of people, which is the main reason we decided to have her try it. Lately Arianna has thrived in community - Girl Scouts, Theater Class, our home school group, the Godspell production at our church and youth group. And while there are many activities here for her to try, it didn't seem like any of them would offer the same sense of community that we hope she will find at ACA.

For those of you so inclined, we would appreciate prayers for her as she goes through this transition.

Abigail and I will start school at home next week. We have continued to check in with her to see if she wants to continue to home school, and she does. As I've probably mentioned before, she has a friend here already from her time in Costa Rica, so her social needs are a little more fulfilled (and seem to be easier to fill at this stage of her life). I'm hoping that she can attend some of the "specials" at the same school which should help with the social aspect of things for her.

Waiting

We've been in our house 2 1/2 weeks and we're still waiting....Waiting for the Cable/Internet to get hooked up. Waiting for the air shipment to get to our house (it arrived in the country on July 5th from what we've been told). Waiting for the pool people to arrive and start working on fixing the tiles (since we believe it will be hot before we know it).

It's a lesson in patience! And we are hopeful - the Cable/Internet is supposed to be hooked up on Thursday. And our air shipment should get to our house before the end of the week.

Now, our boat shipment, that's another story. It is out in the water approaching Buenos Aires. Earlier in the month there was a strike of the dock workers, so I'm hoping that by the time ours gets there the strike will be over and the backlog cleared up.

At the end of last week we had a little scare about our stuff that WASN'T supposed to leave VA. John received a series of e-mails that led him to believe it was on it's way here. We had been advised to not send anything here that we would be very sad to lose, so there were many things that we decided to send to long term storage for safe keeping, never dreaming that they could be accidentally shipped to post! Well, it seems that our storage items were perhaps being prepared for shipment, but that they were indeed still at the warehouse in VA. A big relief if that's the case.

It's COLD!

Brrr! Today and yesterday were definitely the winter weather that our friend here warned us about. It got up to about 51 degrees today (Fahrenheit that is!), which maybe doesn't sound too cold, but our warm coats haven't arrived yet, and the houses are not built for this weather. Neither is the mall! We went there yesterday on an errand, and walked into a very cold building. One night last week it got down to 3 degrees Celsius, which is hopefully as cold as it will get.

Having said all that, we are very thankful that we have heaters in all the rooms (except the bathrooms). We are thinking of the many people in this country do not have any significant heat in their houses or hot water.

What if they won?

We where very happy to be here for Paraguay's final showing at the World Cup. We thought about going over to our friends' church to see it (they were playing it on a big screen), but decided if Paraguay won it might be pretty hard to get back to our hotel. So, we went over to the Mall where there was a book fair and watched the first half there - they had several TV's set up so the employees could all watch. We watched the second half in the hotel lobby, where the employees again were all watching. I thought that Paraguay had a great game, and it would have been great to see the country after a win. Here's a little clip of what how much celebrating there was even after a loss!



That was after the Paraguayan/Spain game. Earlier in the day we heard lots of car horns and fireworks after Germany beat Argentina. I'm not sure if that was because there are so many Germans here cheering them on, or if the Paraguayans were happy to see Argentina defeated....During all of the games of the World Cup the streets were pretty much deserted (which is certainly not the case the rest of the time). It was great to be in Latin America during a World Cup year.