Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! This Christmas, although Santa apparently doesn´t visit South America, he leaves it to the three wisemen who come on Jan 6th, I was still blessed with so many gifts.
1. Family- in a number of ways. I was reminded of my family at home that loves me, Craig and Krista (my brother in law ans sister) who live in Asunción this year, and my new Paraguayan family that has adopted me as their own. A couple weeks ago, I moved in with Eli, Enka, Marcela (my host sister who is pregant) and Nester (who is Marcela´s husband). They´re really sweet and I feel like I´ve learned more about the Paraguayan culture in the past few weeks, than I have in the past few months.
2. The second gift- celebration! Something I´m also finding is that Paraguayans really know how to celebrate! There´s no such thing as a quaint silent night- Christmas is a celebration! Complete with firecrackers, dancing, you name it!

I´ll be honestly, Christmas didn´t really seem like Christmas in the 100 degree weather and fire works. We had a nice dinner, and stayed up til midnight to wish everyone and their dog a merry christmas on their cell phone. My Christmas was a lot different that what I´m used to, but it was still a good experience and that I think that it will make me realize and appreciate our North American Christmas traditions even more.

Have a good New Year...

To all of you back home or where ever you are in the world- I hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a very Happy New Year!

Well well well... it's been quite a while. The past week, I've been house-hoping. Matt. 25:35? Look it up, I can really relate to that- at least more so than just when I stayed at host families during MSEC choir fesitval. It turned out that I had to wait another week longer than I had thought, in order to move in with my host family (regardless- I'm soo excited!), BUT a week before I could move in with my host family, new volunteers were going to come live at the CD- and FILL the place, leaving me homeless in Paraguay. And they told me this 5 days before I had to move out. Thankfully my co-workers are some of the greatest people ever. Just about everyone offered to open up their house for me. 

So last weekend I stayed at Magali's house, and celebrated their aunt's birthday with their whole family and decorated their christmas tree with them... being with the big, talkative, warm Santo family made me miss my own family so much... but it was good to be with them! 

Then on Monday, I made my way over to Graciela's house for the week. This week we've been making a lot of granola to sell at the co-op in Filadelfia next Saturday. So I've been helping out with that, and cooking, and washing dishes... all things that you don't realize how much you miss until you're away from them for a while. 

...That's a quick recap of what my past week has been like. I know it's not much, but on Monday, I'll be moving in with my Paraguayan host family- the "Torres" Just think- Kelsey Shue "Torres" (Or Towers, it would be in English) ...Although they're a super nice family, somehow it doesn't quite fit. I'll stick with Shue. ;)