Peace Corps, Paraguay and a Purpose. : San Juan

Its officially winter here and the last 2 weeks were full of grey skies, dirty laundry and many days spent confined in my little casa. It wasn’t so bad, I did a lot of thinking. Something I heard from other volunteers is a favorite past time and I now agree. I am getting really good at sitting and thinking about life, my past, my present and my future. They are right when they say Peace Corps isn’t for everyone. I don’t know to many people that could find enjoyment out of sitting, reading and thinking for a days length. To be quiet honest I was never a sitter, I was always a doing, I enjoy being around people and having non stop activities.... that lifestyle has changed since arriving. Don’t worry I am still up for a night out and time with friends ( actually I am having 4 over tonight) but I now enjoy the stillness of my front porch as I ponder my presence here, the actions of my past and the dreams of my future! If you need to check out form you busy lives up North, please come on down we can have days filled with....nothing!! pure bliss : )

The sun did finally come out and I got to leave my house for some festivals! June is the month of celebration for the patron saint San Juan. Every school, community and city has their own San Juan festival, I was invited to 3 in my town. It is a time where all the kids prepare dances, there is usually a band, games are played while kids where fun homemade mask, money and candy are put in trees and people have to climb the trees to get the goodies and food, oh the food. Paraguayans love their comida tipica ( typical food) and thats really what San Juan is about. I got to help with the preparing of the food at my school last week. I arrived at the school at 8am and didn’t leave till 8pm, longest day ever.

It first started with the cooking of the meat, peppers, onions and mandioca in these huge pots like the one from Hokus Pokus... right over the fire. Its pretty amazing how much cooking is done over the fire here. Once the meat was ready we put it through a hand grinder to my ground meat for the empanadas, along with the veggies. Then we did the same thing with the mandioca to make the empanada dough. I then spent the next 4 hours making empanadas, well learning. It took me about an hour to perfect the empanada. I was with a bunch of the mothers and teachers and they had a fun time teaching the americana how to make mandioca empanadas. For the record mandioca is the most common “veggie” here. It is exactly like a potato but with less flavor. They eat it at every meal with every type of food. I like it best fried, naturally. We made over 600 empanadas and fried every single one over the fire. Then we make mbeju, my favorite paraguay food, it is like our pancake but with cheese and a bit more crumbly. We made about 400 of those with 3 skillets over the same fire. Then we cooked sausage and sold that with mandioca and we had soda. I helped sell the food and we sold every last bit, it was amazing! I felt like a little grease ball once the day was over, in much need of a shower!

It was a neat experience and I got to meet a lot of new people and try different things. I plan on making mbeju for the family when I am home for Christmas! GET PUMPED, but i promise it will never replace the monkey bread, which is on special request :)

Everything else is going good, getting ready to begin the celebrations for the 4th of July.. yes we are celebrating! In fact the U.S Embassy is having a cookout on Saturday. So a bunch of volunteers are going in this weekend to celebrate. I have friends coming in early and staying with me tonight and tomorrow, I am very excited! I have been doing lots of little projects around the house and will blog about those soon. I wish all of you a safe, happy and VERY American 4th of July!!

Lots of smiles from Paraguay,

Roniann, Roni, Rona, Romy, Rani, Ron-ya and any other name that starts with an “R” that the Paraguay's think is my name, bless their hearts!