almost there update!

Hello world-at-large! It's so interesting to tap into an extended geography via the WWW. It's so calming and fascinating that, no matter the place, the universe always shrinks-or expands-down to the instant of existence. My world right now consists of a steamy internet cafe with tacky, peeling blue walls, sticky keyboards, and a fridge full of glass Coca-Cola bottles. Last night, it was lounging on my host sister's bed discussing dirty words in four languages. Our following conversation about nuclear powerplants and plutonium waste was a bit more complicated, as every third word was new to me, and we had to diverge from the topic for definition explinations or dictionary searches. But, regardless of the conversation's ridiculously slow speed and repetition of phrases, it worked! We did it! Every conversation is progress.

BTW, I switched host families. I know live with an older couple with a 21 year-old daughter that attends university for accounting. The university degrees sought after run in fads. Right now, nursing and accounting are the fashionable technical diplomas until the market is saturated. Before, it was secretarial training.

Anyways, I ran into some deeper problems with my previous host family and moved a couple km down the road. This new house is wonderful, talkative, and incredibly welcoming. My host Papa is non-stop soapboxing about how Paraguay is in the top-five list of about everything you can imagine: PY makes the 3rd best guitars in the world, is the #2 exporter of cotton to the U.K., drinks the most beer in all of South America, and grows the most nutrient-dense watermelons in all of the world. He delivers his facts with dramatic pauses and accents in all the right places, and it's incredibly endearing.

But, this is only my home for one more month! I receive my site assignment for the next 2 years this Wednesday and visit my future community on Friday to meet, greet, and awkwardly ask door-to-door if I can live in their home for the first 3 months of my service. Then, I return for two more weeks of crash course language and training specific to my future site. That's it! Training is over, we swear in, spend one last weekend in the capital, and haul our books and backpacks on overnight buses to our respective new homes. I cannot wait!

Happy holidays to family and friends at home! And, please! Cherish every last flavor of that dressing and real egg nog!

Much love, much light,
Kat