First Week

As of Saturday I have been in Ciudad del Este for 10 days, and it has been an eventful time indeed. I am beginning my second week of school and the structure, of course, is going to take some getting used to:

• My school is Catholic, but there isn´t a ton of religous activity. [Aside: Many Paraguayans are ¨Casual catholics,¨ (such as my family) meaning that they consider themselves Catholic, but do not routinely go to Church.]
• My school has a mandated uniform. (I don´t really mind).

• The Student/Teacher relationship doesn´t make any sense to me. The teachers address you as hijo or child, but they seem to have a high tolerance for clowning around as well (which mis compañeros de clase seem to do in excess). This creates kind of an authoritative contradiction for me; its very confusing.

• I have somewhere between 8 and 10 classes which are on a bit of a sporadic schedule. Students remain in the one room while the teachers move around.

• In some areas I am way ahead, (such as math) but in any class that involves a lot of lecturing in Spanish, I am having trouble. (which is most)

Outside of school, life is very tranquilo. Paraguayan people are very laid-back and inviting. I tend to play about three hours of fútbol a day in the ¨club¨ with my homestay brother Carli and anywhere between 10 and 25 other dudes. In the club, fútbol is played on some sort of hard linoleum surface. I am not exactly sure what it is, but I just try to avoid falling on it. We play 5 on 5, first to five goals, with the losing team rotating out. The games are pretty competitive, but we are all pals in the end.

I just began 40 hours of AFS-mandated Spanish classes yesterday. There are currently five AFSers in the class, two from Germany, (I think...?) one from Japan, another guy from the States and I. The class is a bit tedious right now because I am a little ahead of the rest of the class, but its nice to be able to hang out with some other people that are in the same boat.

In other news, my family threw me a huge surprise party for my 18th birthday. I must admit they left me completely aghast. Additionally, they were somehow able to create this amazing poster for me. (In a couple of days!) Everyone kept prodding me to sing karoake again as I had done the first night, but I really was completely exhausted from the long week. I ended up going to bed at 1am. I´ve never felt like such a party pooper in my life, haha.

Everybody seems to have a different nickname for me, ranging from ¨Hahn-sen!¨ to ¨Lay-fe¨ to ¨Jeffery¨ (I have absolutely no idea where that one came from).

If I understood correctly, this weekend I am going to Carnaval in Encarnación. I am really excited. I have been horrible about taking pictures thus far, but I will make sure to take some then!

Your fearless reporter from the Southern Hemisphere,

Place preferred name here _______.