America...Reagan Country

The last couple weeks of training were a whirlwind of completing projects and visiting families in the community I had formed relationships with. We tilled the green manures we had planted at the beginning of training back into the earth and we grabbed the chickens we had raised from wittle bitty chicks by their legs and carried them home to our respective families for dinner.

My host sisters who live in Buenas Aires came home for the holidays, so I got to meet them. The house was full of jabbering women, trying on new clothes from Argentina and doing their hair--kind of a shock after hanging out with mostly guys for so long. All the guys in my group have been growing their facial hair out, and the for the occassion of swearing in as Peace Corps volunteers, created some fine mustache art.

I am a full-fledged Volunteer with a capital "V." I was sworn in at the U.S. Embassy, amidst green, manicured grounds and pools, protected by six marines, countless security gurads, and a token deer, who grazes the property. My own little America away from America. Signs at the entrance prohibit guns. Ya think? I never got used to coming home at night to see my host dad smoking a cigarette in the dark with a pistola at his side "for protection."

These few days I have in Asuncion are the antithesis of my regular campo lifestyle. I have AC, a TV with English movie channels, and my first hot shower in months. In this summer heat, a cold shower suffices, but there's just something about hot water that gives me that so-fresh-and-so-clean-clean feeling.

The other night we has sunset g+ts on the rooftop terrace and watched the hazy, pink skyline and the Rio Paraguaya behind it. And beyond that, Argentina. There are some beautiful, old Colonial buildings, which is a nice change fromt he hastily thrown up structures I've been inhabiting. And the food! Paraguayan food has definately grown on me, though it's a love-hate relationship. (I spent my last night with my host family throwing up into a cardboard box). It is nice to eat something besides greasy tortillas and grissly meat. We went out for Korean food, and I gorged myself on seaweed salad and grilled tofu and veggies.

Now all of us are picking up last-minute items in the city and enjoying each other's company before we go our separate ways, which is exciting and intimidating. My visits to the internet cafe will probably become less frequent, until I can get a bike or a horse to transport me on those hilly, dirt roads. Until then, peace.