Chickens and Capital Cities

This will just be quick note because I don´t have much time to internet today, as usual. They keep us quite busy during this 3 month training period. We´re in Asuncion today, the capital city of Paraguay. We´ve been matched up with another PC trainee and given tasks to do in the capital to make sure we´re not completely ignorant. Figuring out the buses has been amusing, especially knowing when to get off the bus because there are no signs for anything. And all I know is the name of the place I´m supposed to go to. But it´s worked out so far and being in Latin American cities is always an experience not to be missed. This little excursion is in preparation for this weekend, when we´re all going out to visit current PC volunteers in the country. And we´re all going alone, so that will definitely lead to more stories for the blog next week. Stay tuned.....

As for last weekend, my family slaughtered 15 chickens on Saturday for a big feast/party they had on Sunday. I told them I wanted to help out with the process and they took me seriously, kind of. At first I was only given the job of pulling feathers out of the dead birds which I was content with for awhile. But then I expressed my desire to actually kill a chicken, and they were all about laughing at the Norte as she tried to do this. My aunt handed me the chicken and I did what she had been doing all afternoon--grabbing the bird by the head in one hand and the legs in the other hand and then twisting the head around the body a few times, follwed by pulling the head away from the body really hard until the neck broke. That may be a little much for some of you, but that´s how it´s done down here. However, I must have done something a little wrong, liked pulled too hard or twisted too much or something, because I the head was barely attached to the body when I was done. And that´s not how theirs were. I also caused a lot of blood to be involved, which they also did not do. And the next day, the other PC trainees in my community told me the rumor going around town, which they heard from their host families, was that I totally beheaded the chicken. Which was not quite true, but that´s how it goes in the gossip mill. So...that was the only chicken I killed and my family had a good laugh about it. I was then demoted back to pulling out feathers.

That´s all I have for now. Gotta get back to running around Asuncion.