I made it

I am safe and sound in Paraguay, in case anyone was wondering. I have officially entered a whole new world and am excitied about it. As soon as we got into Py (Paraguay, from now on), we were whisked off to our host families´ houses which are in villages outside of Guarambare, which is outside of Asuncion, the capital. I am living with a family in the village Senda. They´re really nice, of course, but speak mostly Guarani instead of Spanish. That´s not so nice. I have a 17 yr old host sister, Marianna, and she does a lot of translating for me between Guarani and Spanish. Keep in mind, though, that my Spanish is pretty weak so the translating only goes so far. I have high hopes for language skills with enough time....at least that´s what I keep telling myself. There´s no running water at my house so that means bucket baths. Haven´t quite figured out the best method with the bucket but I´m sure it´s an acquired skill. We do have electricity, which I don´t use much except for light, but my family watches a lot of novelas at night and listens to a lot of music during the day. Today I watched a Beyonce video with my host brother, and for those of you who know how much I love Beyone, this really made my day. We have a well outside the house, fully equipped with a bucket tied to a rope and that´s how we get the water. Very surreal for someone who´s always had water from a faucet. My family also has 4 cows, a pig and lots of chickens so that means I get fresh milk every morning (in cocido, the morning tea drink) and fresh eggs in some of the meals. There´s no stove in the house so my host mom cooks everything on a wood fire in the ¨kitchen¨, which is just an open room on the side of the house.

Things are cool. This is going to be quite an experience, to say the least. Apparently Py doesn´t have many water-borne diseases, so they (PC staff) are recommending that we start drinking unboiled water immediately so that we can get used to everything. I´m anticipating that means I´ll be sick very soon, but not that sick. All the other volunteers (actually trainees for the next 11 weeks) are fun and excited and nice to have around to speak English with and talk about our crazy experiences. The last couple of days have just been an introduction to the rest of our training period and the real training starts on Monday. I´m sure I´ll have more to talk about then. I´m attaching the few pictures I´ve taken so far so you can get a sense of the scenery and my home. Lots of love-

The side of my host families´house. My room is to the left when you walk up onto the main patio

My room..nothing special, but enough room for my yoga mat thank goodness

Some scenery on the walk from Senda to Guarambare

More scenery on the walk. Apparently the thing on the right is a shrine to some kids who did not fare so well after jumping into the ¨river¨

Hasta la vista!

Well, this is it. I'm sitting in the Miami airport waiting to fly to Asunción in a couple of hours. It's been slightly overwhelming the last five days trying to prepare for this moment. First there was the fabulous good bye party at Nina's, with lots of black dresses, cocktails and volcanoes, as you can see in the photo. I spent the next day recovering in some hot springs up in the Jemez, which was a perfect way to end my time in New Mexico. The day before leaving I spent all day at school running around trying wrap things up for my degree and I think I succeeded. We'll see in December if it's official or not. This all left little time to officially prepare for my trip, so I was up until 2:00 am packing the night before I flew out of Albuquerque. I managed to fit all of my belongings for the next two years in a big packpack, a duffelbag and two smallish carry-ons. My checked luggage weighed in at 81 lbs, and we had an 80 lb limit. I'm pretty proud of how close I got and there was no complaints for the extra pound, thank goodness.

I met up with the rest of the group headed down to Paraguay at the hotel here in Miami. There is a grand total of 42 of us! We had a really useless orientation earlier today where we were treated like 5 year olds. I'm not looking forward to more of that as the training continues. But I think the group is really good, overall. There's one woman over 60, the rest under 30, 18 males, the rest female, 1 married couple, lots of people leaving behind girlfriends/boyfriends, others who don't know Spanish all that well and a lot of different states represented. I'm the only one from New Mexico - woo woo! It's really nice to be around so many people who understand why I've made the decision to join the Peace Corps, with no judgement or criticisms. We're all in this together.

And whatever "this" is feels very strange right now. I'm leaving behind everything I know and love to enter a world of who the hell knows what. But that's all part of the adventure. Grad school was really draining on me, slowly sucking the lifeblood from my soul. Now it's time to re-energize my spirit and enjoy life as it comes. That part is exciting. The rest is immensely terrifying.

Once again, I want to graciously thank all my wonderful friends and family for their support and encouragement. I hate to make it sound like I'm dying (and trust me, that's how the last few weeks have felt at times), but I love you all and I hope you know how important you are in my life. Please please please write me letters, send me stuff and come visit!!!!!!!! When else would you ever go to Paraguay? Now is the time......

Here are some more pictures of my last few weeks in the states, visiting and hanging out with my peeps.

The gang at a music festival in Pagosa Springs
(Me, Austin, Leanne, Matt, Maarten and Liv)

My adorable and photogenic niece, Juniper

Me and one of my best friends, Betsy, at the beginning of a crazy night in Crested Butte


Me and another of my other best and oldest friends, Leah

The awesome TA-Team
(Lyman, me and Zach)

And the reality sets in....

Whoa, what a whirlwind this past week has been: defending the thesis, celebrating being done with the thesis (hence, the picture on the right), garage sale, packing up house, cleaning up house, and moving my life into random places. I'm officially homeless and ready to spend these next few weeks really enjoying and appreciating the people in my life.

Leaving Albuquerque today (but don't worry, I'll be back before leaving the country) left me extremely nostalgic and a little lost. It's been home for me for the past 5 years and I've really grown to love it. I love going down to the river or up to the mountains within minutes. I love that you can go skiing in the morning and mountain biking in the afternoon on the same day. I love riding my bike downtown to go to yoga or to the El Rey and hippie dance my bootie off all night. I love playing croquet in the backyard and sitting on the porch for hours. Most of all, though, I love the people who have become a part of my life and shared all of these activities with me. I've been surrounded by a real community and I feel so fortunate for that. To all those special Burqueans reading this----Thank you for all the support, encouragement and help over these past few weeks and thank you for your friendship over the past 5 years. I feel very loved right now and I owe that all to you. I will miss you immensely (but I'll get to tell you that in person in 2 weeks).