Cooking with Soy

Despite the fact 3 trainees are going home, it was a good week. One day The Urban Youth group got to go out to a more rural area, where the rural health and sanitation trainees live and learned how to make soy empenadas. It was so much fun and nice break from sitting in a classroom. We peeled skins off the soy beans, cooked them, cooled them, blended them into soy milk, then we drained the soy milk in this special cloth. That left the soymilk with this paste that we then mixed with some cooked, minced vegetables and rolled that into the empenada. It was so good and I was so thrilled to be eating soy. We did all this outside on a big table with a small group of trainees and Paraguayans. We also made salad (Paraguayans like their salad, if they ever eat a salad with the vegetables chopped very, very tiny and no lettuce) I brought one home for my host family to try and they liked it so they want me to make it for dinner tomorrow night. I found some premade soy at the store that i hope will work.

I had a bit of an issue this week with my host family because they asked me for money for the electric bill and we are NOT supposed to be paying for anything. Peace Corps is paying our families directly for all our costs. Peace Corps talked to my family and they said they are charging me because I use the iron a lot, i only use it once a week!! So, now i have to find someone outside the house to do my laundry to avoid any drama. It is frustrating that they think we have a lot of money, when we are not making hardly anything! Our allowance is 3 dollars a day, which goes far here but sometimes i think Paraguayans think we must be getting paid a lot if we left behind good jobs to come down here.

There was a big storm this weekend, I have never seen so much thunder and lightening in my life, I was actually pretty scared and felt like a little kid with the sheet over my head at night! The roads are dirt so it´s sometimes impossible to cross the street because there is a 3 foot river in front of the house. I just stromped through it with my Tevas on! But Paraguayans don´t go anywhere if it rains.

It is cooling down a bit and we just set our clocks back an hour to get ready for Fall. I now have to use hot water in the shower, which means I have to turn the water on, then flip an electric switch, yes you heard me electric! Then when you´re done, you flip the switch off and then turn the water off. If you mix up the order or forget the switch is on and touch the metal handle on the shower, watch out, you might get woken up with a big shock in the morning! This hasn´t happened to me yet.

It has become really normal for me to see huge bugs everywhere, in the shower, on my bed, on the walls, in the internet cafe, wherever. I don´t even think twice about drinking a glass of water with a tiny bug in it anymore either.

The one thing i am not getting used to is the dogs. They are everywhere, they are skinny, sick, dirty, and many times look like they are in a lot of pain because they got hit by a car. I will never get used to seeing people kick them either. I may try to adopt a puppy when i get to my site but then i don´t want to think about what would happen to it when i leave. It would be nice to have the protection and the company though.

Hope you are all well and enjoying the last of winter! I am enjoying the last of summer!