A Story About Poop

I´ve been in Paraguay just over a week and it feels like so much longer. Already I´ve been the 2nd person to be sent into the capital for medical treatment! The first few days our familes were given strict guidlines about boiling our water, etc and the first few days I didn´t have any stomach problems. During out orientation in Miami we were told we were going to bond very fast with the other volunteers and in no time at all we would be talking about our diahrea all the time. After about 3 days this was true. I have talked about my poop so much and heard about so many other people´s poop it feels like we´ve known each other for years! Almost EVERYONE has diahrea but it´s the kind we get back home where we are miserable all day. It just comes and goes and after you go, you move on with your day and it´s no big deal. I am pretty sure my family still boils my water but it´s so hot out I drink so much I don´t think they can keep up with the boiling. Plus, when i go to someone else´s house and drink terere, the very traditional tea drink Paraguayans drink 24 7 I don´t want to ask 'so did you boil this water to make this terere' it doesn't help with the cultural integration so much. They already think i am weird for not eating meat. I am eating a tons of carbs and a tons of fruit. The food is a lot better than i expected. Anyways....back to my poop problem. So, the diahrea was fine until I saw a lot of blood coming out with it. I read my book that was given to us by the Peace Corps doctor called Where There Is No Doctor and i diagnosed myself with amebas. I got picked up from my house, driven to Asuncion and was given a rectal exam and gave them stool sample and i will find out the results next week. It is probably nothing and i was told to stop reading the book it will give me nightmares! I feel fine and so far no more blood but it was a very fun trip to the city and it got me out of training for a half a day!

Training is fun. There are 35 of us, mostly in our early to mid twenties. There are two 30 year olds, one married couple and one person over 30. I learned there are currently 7,000 volunteers in 73 countries. Peace corps only uses 1 percent of the foreign operations budget too! Peace Corps Paraguay is considered one of the best programs because it´s been here for 40 years. we are getting trained by a company called CHP and they are contracted with The Peace Corps. Many of the trainers are PC alumni and the rest, such as our language teachers are Paraguayan. They are so patient with us and so nice. We are already reviewed on our Spanish and are learning Guarani. It is such a fun language but really difficult. There are vocal sounds and nasal sounds. There a lot of weird sounds with the throat and my family laughs at me when i pronounce somethign for the first time.

My family is great. My host mom is 55, and she´s a teacher. They are on summer break right now though so she`s home all the time. I wake up every morning at 6 thirty and have coffee with her and fruit. Then i go to school, come home and have lunch. Then go to school, get out at 5 and come home and play with my host nephew David. He is 7 and so cute. we play Jenga, i am so glad i brought it but i am going to get so sick of it. We also play with bouncy balls that i brought and i am teaching him yoga. He loves it! I have two teenage brothers who are gone a lot out doing their thing. My host dad is a mechanic and i think he works far away. Kids here dont have a lot to do. I am already getting ideas for projects. Today we ran a day camp with a current volunteer and only 12 kids showed up, most who were host brothers or sisters of us trainees but it was still fun. we played games, read to them ,etc. >They are not used to people reading to them. We eat dinner around 8 or 9 then i usually journal, write letters and go to bed. It so hot, i just sleep on top of my sheets and i have a mosquito net i have to use because there is an outbreak of dengue fever that has killed a lot of people. Its on the news every day. But we have bug spray and now that i know how good PC medical treatment is i am not worried. There is a certain time of the day when those mosquitos come out so at those times no one goes outside.

Tomorrow i am going into asuncion again to go to the zoo with another trainee and her family. Next weekend we are individually being sent to another volunteers site with instructions on how to get there. we will spend a couple days with them to get an idea of what it is like to really be a volunteer out there alone, without going to classes all day with your fellow trainees. It should be fun and a nice break. I think they do that on week 3 cuz they know we cant handle anymore information and need something to break it up. We have to be on our best behavior, and its exhausting to always be smiling, etc and to accept every inviation your family gives you. alone time is very much an american concept so we dont get very much, if any. I am getting more adjusted every day. I have running water, although it turns off at random times in the day. Paraguayans shower like 4 times a day cuz its so hot so i feel clean all the time. at first i didnt want to shower that much but being clean shows respect so i have to shower at least 2 or 3 times a day. The first thing my host mom asks me when i come home is 'so do you want to shower before you come eat` I used to say `no i´m good´ but now i say `why yes i´d love to`

It was a huge shock to see the reality of the 3rd world and i dont think i´ll ever get used to it but i think i can get used to living in it. The next challenge will be learning how to work in it.