Help Us Eat Our Veggies!

Kevin and I hit the Peace Corps foodie jackpot with our tiny commuter town.

Almost more than any other challenge, I hear my fellow volunteers complain about the availability of fresh vegetables in their sites.  Fruit grows in excess (and often goes to waste), but variety all but always only comes with personal gardens and lucky finds on veggie runs to bigger towns.  It comes down to demand.  Paraguay has some of the most fertile land on Earth, but why grow a crop that no one wants to eat?

As a country, Paraguay tends to favor beige meals.  Mandioca, breaded meat, pasta, cornmeal, and rice all contribute to a dinner table lacking color; color otherwise known as vegetables.  When the green (or orange or red or purple) stuff actually makes it to the table, it usually arrives beyond well done and with all the nutrients cooked out.  Although families will serve a little cabbage or shredded leaf lettuce along side lunch, most kids and adults do not eat three to five servings of vegetables in a week- let alone daily.

Upon arriving in our community, Kevin and I could not believe our good fortune to find the area agricultural high school just a few blocks away from our new home.  Kids come from a few towns over to focus their studies on farming, both raising crops and animal husbandry.  Students learn the tricky business of growing food on an experimental field adjacent to their classrooms.  Flush with leafy greens and hearty gourds, we quickly learned that much of this crop ends up eaten by animals.

Since traditionally Paraguayans do not eat a lot of vegetables, many have no idea how to prepare them.  In an effort to turn this around, the director of the school invited Kevin and I to teach a class regarding healthy eating and incorporating vegetables into daily diets.  Classes resume in February, so we will spend the next couple months experimenting with different main dishes, sides plates, sauces, breads, soups, and casseroles.

And we need your help.  Please send in your favorite veggie recipes and we’ll try and work them into our syllabus.  The following ingredients are readily available at the school:  

Milanesa de carne, mashed potatoes with mayonnaise, and sopa Paraguaya, with tomatoes and onions.

avocado

banana
beets

black beans
broccoli
cabbage
carrot
cauliflower
celery
chili pepper
corn
cucumber
eggplant
grapefruit
green leaf lettuce
green onion

green peas
green pepper
kale
mandioca (a denser cousin to potato)
orange
orange lime (less tangy than green limes)
oregano
parsley
potato

red beans
red leaf lettuce
soy bean
squash
tomato
watermelon
wheat
white onion

As always, thank you for your support.  Please send suggestions via email or in the comment section under this post.  As we try out ideas with local ingredients and taste tasters, we will feature recipes and results on this blog.

Growing Pains

In many ways, Paraguay is the baby in a world of nations.  Yes, many of our towns have celebrated 400 year anniversaries (and usually that just marks when the Europeans started paying attention).  Yes, people often call our capital the mother city of South America, as the founders of many of great cities stopped in Asunción before establishing, for example, Buenos Aires.  And yes, Paraguay officially turned 200 this past May.  Nevertheless, merely 22 years back, Paraguay experienced a rebirth. 

The dictator Stroessner ranks in as the 14th longest serving non-royal state leader in history.  Coming from a country where presidents stick around for eight measly years, I find it difficult to wrap my brain around the idea that one person could act as the face of a nation for 35 years.  (Of course, Strom Thurmond and Ted Kennedy don’t even top the list of longest serving US senators, at 47 and 46 years respectively.  However, I hardly believe that most Americans considered these guys for even a moment when making daily decisions.)

In 1989 Paraguay initiated a move from closed society where very little from the rest of the world penetrated these borders, to a place where international trends could potentially take hold.  With time, cable television and the world wide web steeped in to take the country that sustained itself- intellectually and agriculturally- for decades, and introduce it to the rest of the world.

The transition from absolute power into democracy hardly ever goes smoothly.  When all a generation has ever known focuses on pleasing a tyrant, change does not come easy.  Beyond updating laws and recognizing human rights on a state level, personally people need learn how to live freely.  Dealing with choice does not always come naturally.  And through these awkward, finding oneself years, Paraguay struggles through comprises and contradictions arise.

Parents post photos to Facebook of their children performing traditional dances from smart phones.  Some areas surge forward with the speed of neighboring industrialized countries, others lag behind.  We live in a town with 3G internet coverage, but no standardized running water system.  A woman’s gaze or the way she crosses her legs may may invite something entirely unintentional.  Yet, since no one bothered to investigate the lyrics, second graders can whip up a dance routine to Lady Gaga singing about someone’s “disco stick” without any concern.

Halloween has become a point of contention.  Our town, which prides itself as one of the most Catholic places in an already very Catholic country, does not celebrate.  November 1st and 2nd mark special days in the local religious calendar and dressing up for October 31st indicates a partnership with the devil.  Despite this, elsewhere in Paraguay, stores stock up on fake spiderwebs and the second annual zombie walk recently marched through the capital.

On the other hand, you can dress up as Batman for the first day of spring.  Also known as “Youth Day,” our town hosts a week of celebrations including a children’s parade, some sort of princess contest, and countless asados.  Paraguay makes a big deal out of this particular change in season and an even bigger deal out of extolling the country’s youth.  Nearly every person in our medium sized town took part in the party.  Neither one of us had any idea the significance of the day before hand.  Other volunteers reported a wide variety in levels of observance in their own sites.

Accordingly, we navigate Paraguay in tandem with the rest of the population.  Our confusion takes a backseat as this nation finds itself.  I doubt we’ll figure it all out in just two short years.  Neither will Paraguay.  All the same, next year I will have my Godzilla costume ready a month early.

An Exchange in Self-Esteem

Charla: Literally translates to “talk” or “chatter”.  In reality, refers to a sort of guest-led training event.  The speaker may substitute for a teacher in a school or host an independent training (single or multiple sessions) on any number of topics.  PC Paraguay loves charlas.

I have a confession to make.  Throughout junior high and high school, I never took a standard version of a class when an honors track existed.  (Full disclosure, when I transferred to public school in the sixth grade I did not enroll in the gifted language arts program because I had spent the previous standardized test season in the hospital and my new school did not know what to do with me.  At least my math teacher gave a pre-test on the first day of class and promoted me on the second.)  Backdoor bragging notwithstanding, the fact remains: I did not realize until many years later what true classroom management meant for most teachers.  Of course I know that not every class that doesn’t earn an honors point gets crazy and truthfully, arrogant honors kids can get completely out of hand.  However, generally speaking, when you share all your classes with a group of nerds more interested in applying to Harvard than Homecoming, most days pass uneventfully.  If anything, I was probably the most obnoxious female in the A.P. clique.  (Super sorry, by the way.)  Even so, it never occurred to me to carry on a conversation with my neighbor talking over my teacher in my full speaking voice or to blatantly disregard clear instructions.  To this day, I still feel guilty for giggling as the boys in my 8th Spanish class tortured a substitute teacher by tricking her into using made up slang to tell the whole room that she did indeed masturbate.  (She thought she told us about an entirely different hobby.)

Well, today, those thirteen year old giggles exacted a little karmic retribution.  After months of careful observation and planning, Kevin and I dove in head first and lead our first set of self-esteem charlas for seventh through eleventh graders. 

If my high school experience represents one end of the classroom behavior spectrum and season four of The Wire represents the other, typical Paraguayan classrooms lie somewhere in the middle- leaning closer towards The Wire.  Some kids take a great interest in school, others prefer to drink terere during class and throw garbage on the floor.  Teachers, tend to concentrate their attention on the focused students and disregard the behavior of the others.  I have yet to see discipline enforced (or even threatened) for disrespectful conduct.

This problem stems from multiple directions.  One, after speaking with several teachers, I’ve learned that most people who work in schools do not do so because they feel passionate about learning.  In Paraguay, if you want the fastest track into white collar work, you become a teacher.  Additionally, although recently the federal government completely re-hauled grade level expectations, few teachers follow the new guidelines or use suggested methodologies and lesson plans.  Kids move from grade to grade, regardless of their competency, with their peers.  Most teachers teaching today, teach in the same manner that they learned. 

A dictator doesn’t stay in charge by encouraging critical and free thinking.  Incidentally, five decades of Paraguayan public schools concentrated on rote memorization.  Teachers would read from a text book and students copied what they heard into personal notebooks.  In art class, a teacher would draw a picture on the board and expected students to mimic the drawing as closely as possible.  Twenty-two years into democracy, not much has changed.  Students still do not have their own textbooks and struggle with imaginative lessons and creative problem solving.  Kids memorize correct answers and leave the process of getting there to the textbook publishers.  In other words, no one in Paraguay has seen Dead Poets Society. 

Finally, students barely attend class four hours a day and schools regularly cancel for strikes, institutes, and inclement weather.  When school is in session, classrooms lack climate control and proper furniture.  While observing a one hour long class from a broken chair on a hot day, I could hardly pay attention either- and I’ve had tons of experience feigning interest in boring situations.  How can we expect kids to do any better?  Luckily, the teachers in our local school seem dedicated to bringing about major reforms in education and have specifically requested we work with them on the same.

PCVs learn to combat these issues, by hosting interactive charlas where the kids get out of their seats, work in groups, and have to come up with their own answers.  Although the later part requires pulling teeth, after a while the kids catch on and let their guard down.  For our introduction on self-esteem, the students seemed to enjoy themselves and the charlas went basically well.  (I’d average our seven sessions to date at about a “B”.)  Perhaps they went well because we included outdoor activities that work best (at least for discussion purposes) when everything goes wrong.  Eh, igual.  (It’s all the same.)  For the record, I feel no guilt from bribing answers with candy.  Nothing solves a participation problem better than sugar. 

My post-charla self-esteem, though... that’s another issue entirely.  Make no mistake, these classroom hours drained the life out of me.  However, not all hope has fled.  As we exited the school this afternoon- after a particularly difficult group of ninth graders put us through the ringer- some eighth graders stuck their heads out the window of their classroom and yelled, “when’s our turn?”  Our reply of “tomorrow” met cheers.  Of course this exchange interrupted their teacher mid-lesson, but I take my wins where I find them.

How to Fight with Your Mother in Paraguay or A Guide to Indirect Communication

As a nation, Paraguay engages in a lot of indirect communication.  Of course, when speaking in generalizations regarding an entire country, exceptions occur (er, certain radical terrorist organizations, for example).  However, if the Emily Post Institute ever decides to publish an edition of her rules regarding proper etiquette and social behavior for Paraguayan audiences, page one will read: never confront anyone about anything or offer a clear opinion any topic (except soccer).

As the type of person who has, on at least one occasion, “told it like it is,” this particular social adjustment required a delicate hand.  I work best when all the cards are on the table.  When I have the opportunity to obsess about a situation, I will take it.  If I receive unclear feedback, believe me, I will concoct the worst case scenario in my head and assume that I have offended everyone.  How will I ever adjust to a place where straight answers have gone the way of the dinosaurs?

As it turns out, this lifestyle has a few perks.  Awkward situations rarely arise.  In fact, the word doesn’t even directly translate.  One night, while sitting around with a handful of former Spanish majors and a few native speakers, we realized that the term awkward does not exist within the Spanish language.  Strange, difficult, uncomfortable, embarrassment (extraño, difícil, incómodo, verguenza)- these all make the list.  Yet nothing quite captures awkward.

Think of the possibilities.  You never have to say no to an invitation again.  Don’t feel like going to yet another birthday party on a Tuesday night?  No need to worry about hurting someone’s feeling with a firm “no”, when “sure” or “maybe” will do the trick just fine.  This may seem troublesome to the one throwing the party, but Paraguay has this figured out too.  Always assume, regardless of response, that one third of those invited to an event, will attend the event.  Simple.

Organizational non-confrontation works great during actual arguments as well.  For example, earlier this week I decided to start a fight with my home-stay mother.  She enjoys bossing me around and, upon crossing an invisible line over the weekend, I decided my foot needed to come down.  She knew she crossed the line as soon as her pinky toe creeped over it, but I made the issue known.  For our battlefield, I chose the always risky dinner table.

Paraguayan mothers feed their guests with the force of ten Italian grandmothers.  Making it away from any meal before hitting 1500 calories demands carefully timed eating and precision guilt navigation.  Rarely will you have the option to walk away from seconds without deep interrogation.  For a while, I said yes to extra helpings in the interest of avoiding an argument.  With time, I learned how to eat just slow enough as to not attract attention, but to still finish after everyone else.  Thus, confusing the option for seconds as others have already left the table.  This time, however, I had no intention of carefully navigating anything.

During lunch, as I finished my last few bites and placed my fork on the edge of my plate, my “mom” offered me seconds.  I looked her straight in the eye and said “no, thank you.”  She, upon realizing the dogfight in front of her, she accepted the challenge by giving me “the look” and sitting down.  (All Paraguayan women of a particular age know and regularly employ “the look”.  Imagine the most disappointed look you’ve ever received from your own mother.  Now double it.  Now add a flash of rage.  Now hold it for at least seven seconds.  That’s “the look”.) 

We’ve gone on like this for three whole days.  Neither one of us has any intention of discussing the issue and every other exchange we share seems perfectly normal.  Despite all this passive aggression, somehow our differences have started to work themselves out in silence.  I think the argument has begun to break.  Tonight, as I declined a second helping of dinner, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “But wasn’t it delicious?”  This must mean I won.

The New Guy

When it comes to work, I don’t like being the new guy and detest learning the ropes.  I very much prefer being the friendly and wise sage-like senior staff member who makes the new guy feel right at home.  I like when co-workers bounce ideas off me and come to me for advice.  I like knowing how to work the finicky and ancient coffee machine.  I like knowing everyone’s name.  As such, changing careers and accepting a job closer to Antarctica than to my mother’s house and agreeing to function in a language that I don’t speak has presented a handful of personal challenges.  These personal discomforts, separate from the weird bug bite/missing the flavor of cheddar cheese sort of discomfort, I doubt will ever fully disappear.  They have, though, started to feel a bit more comfortable.

Recently, someone suggested to me that in Paraguay, the days crawl, but the months fly by.  Seeing how swiftly October snuck up on us, I couldn’t agree more.  It’s odd to think that we’ve been residents of our town for over two months.  We’ve gone from strangers to strange neighbors and those projects which felt so far away at the beginning of August have started to emerge. 

Some newly christened volunteers receive assignments where they have a clear objective from the day they step foot in site.  Occasionally communities, especially those where a new volunteer takes a site over from a previous PCV, have active projects where they slip into pre-ordained roles upon arrival.  Other communities have never heard of the Peace Corps or met anyone from the United States.  In these cases, the volunteer constantly has to explain themselves and the PC. 

We all face different challenges.  The volunteer who walks in the front door with a clear idea of his or her future work, may spend the next two years in constant comparison to the previous volunteer- an especially harrowing (or at least annoying) situation when that previous volunteer married someone from the area.  (PC Paraguay has one of the highest rates of volunteers marrying other volunteers or host country nationals of any PC post in the world.)  Volunteers who struggle with work may integrate well into their communities personally.  However frustrated over failed projects, they leave having formed deeper bonds and relationships than they initially expected possible.

Our area, though not unfamiliar with the Peace Corps, has not seen a volunteer in almost a decade.  Some of our neighbors remember these volunteers fondly and kindly associate us with them.  Other people think we’re spies.  Community leaders request volunteers through a lengthy application process.  Usually, these folks have a firm grasp on the PC experience.  The rest of the community, generally, does not. 

Although we did not walk into any active projects, our community already had a number of long term goals which (supposedly) our training should enable us to assist with.  Still though, walking into a new place charged with the task of supporting something intangible- building civic participation in youth, for example- feels overwhelming.  In many ways we interview for the job with every conversation we have- except that we don’t bring our resumes door to door to talk about the weather.  We both fully accept that we will get nowhere before our community places a certain amount of trust in us, our abilities, and our mission.  (And yes, a childless married couple does arouse suspicion.)

Our site presentation helped.  Representatives from the central office came to our town and shared the goals and mission of PC with over sixty of our neighbors.  Our bosses also used this opportunity to explain how they match volunteers with communities.  No, the US government didn’t just send two random Yankees and assumed they would do well simply by virtue of birthright.  We were asked to join this community because Kevin and I have specific skills that compliment the long term goals of the populace.  I know we have something to share and I feel exceptionally fortunate that many leaders within our community listened to the presentation and have since approached us to collaborate on plans.

However, I knew before we even arrived in Paraguay that I would take with me far more than I could ever leave.  I guess, though, I didn’t expect to feel quite so lost.  Please don’t confuse this with sadness or distress.  I love it here and feel happy most of the time.  There are just some days where I have no idea what’s going on or where things will lead.  It’s like right before a blind date.  Your friend promises so and so is great and you two will hit it off smashingly.  The couple days leading up to the big night, butterflies flutter through your stomach and daydreams fill with “what ifs”.  Except that mix of nervous excitement is every day of my life.  Like blind dates, some days go well.  Some even turn into something wonderful.  Other days go horribly, terribly wrong.  And despite the direction the evening goes, a story forms and we remember something for next time.

Any press is good press...

Peace Corps spends a lot of time talking about expectations.  From the first inquiry, applicants, then nominees, then invitees, then trainees receive the same advice: lose your expectations.  We gathered loads of other advice too, but this particular piece Kevin and I chose to internalize.  While our potential placement moved through every continent where Peace Corps serves, we both felt relief that we conscientiously elected to keep an open mind and refuse to create fantasies surrounding our future service.  As we begin to settle into the town that we’ll make our home for the next two years, I realize that we could have never dreamed up a situation like the one we now live in.  I haven’t had to worry about our assignment meeting my expectations, but I never had any.  I never felt let down, because I didn’t know what to expect.  So far, we have met a series of wonderful (and sometimes wonderfully strange) surprises.

However helpful I have found this piece of advice, I should have meditated on the following addendum a little longer as well: lose your expectations for privacy.  Coming into this I knew that the privacy I have come to love, cherish, and savor in Chicago would disappear as soon as we arrived.  More precisely, I knew this intellectually, but I didn’t even come close to understanding.  Personal space: gone.  Personal time: extremely limited.  Personal information: everywhere.

Before arriving in site, Peace Corps volunteers receive instruction to spend their first three months getting to know their community.  In place of projects and traditional work activities, volunteers take the time to get to know their neighbors and assess the needs and wants of the populace.  I admit that, as someone who finds meeting new people utterly exhausting, I approached this task with some dread.  After stressing myself out with pep talks and running through introductory scenarios in my head, we threw ourselves into the deep end.  And, of course, all my fears faded as we made our way through the town.  I had built up the process of meeting our new neighbors into an unachievable feat, when really we just needed to put ourselves out there.  Our success, however, had little to do with our sparkling personalities and natural ease.  Really, we have our lack of privacy to thank.  Meet one person and the whole town knows you.

When I hobble through town on my big man’s crutches, I stand out.  I mean really stand out.  In an oddly positive turn of events, people will come out to the street to say hello and ask to hear the story from the source.  And I can’t get away with a simple, “I fell.”  This turns into Where did you fall?  In the shower.  I don’t understand how you hurt your heel in shower.  Didn’t you hurt your butt, too?  No, I when I slipped my one leg turned under me.  How does that happen?  I was washing my feet at the time.  And now I get to mime the whole messy thing out.  At least- as long as I use the crutches- no one expects me to get back into the splits.  This happens every time.  Every time. 

In Paraguay, lack of privacy extends beyond gossip, too.  This past week I started physical therapy in the next town over.  During my second appointment, I shared the room with another patient.  While she stripped down to her skivvies, she approached my table and asked me all about how I ended up needing treatment.  Notice I did not mention a screen or partition.*  She actually made eye contact a few times as she undressed in front of me.  As she started her treatment, she explained to me that she has a problem in her abdomen.  She went on the chronicle the ages, occupations, and current locations of each of her five children, the health of her mother, and how she was married but her husband ran off with a younger woman and now they have two kids but she and he never got a divorce so she’s still his wife but she’s done with him anyway.  At this moment, a conflict arises.  On the one hand, I would not have interest in hearing this story even if the storyteller had her pants on.  On the other hand, I felt pretty pleased with myself for understanding her entire sorted tale.  After about fifteen minutes, I welcomed a break from the banter and we both drifted off as sounds of the neighbor’s barking dogs and heavy cumbia beats wafted in through an open window.  Don’t worry- we both have eight more appointments.  Surely we’ll have the opportunity to chat some more.

So, here’s to two years without secrets, but at least understanding the gossip we create.

***My physical therapist’s office, though under construction, looks very similar to set-ups I have seen in the States.  Since this visit, a partition between the beds has gone up.  I have, however, the utmost confidence that this story would have played out exactly the same way with or without a six foot long three-quarter wall dividing us.

The same, but oh so very different

Some people say that a magic age exists when- as part of the process ushering us into fully fledged adulthood- we learn to accept our quirks as parts of our whole.  Somehow, we start to identify ourselves by the very same characteristics that tortured our teenage years.  Little by little, this happens to us all.  Now, I may have yet to celebrate my chin, but I know for certain that the next time I trip and fall, I will not feel embarrassed.  Why?  I fall down a lot.  Always have, always will.  I don’t remember my age when I first started to embrace my clumsiness, but I certainly own it now.  I’ve tried paying closer attention, I’ve tried focusing, I limit physical multi-tasking.  Nothing makes a difference.

The other morning, my true self emerged once again when I slipped in the shower.  Upon realizing that I managed something a little more serious than bruise, the PC Medical Officer sent me to see a doctor in a nearby large city.  Although relieved to avoid the six hour bus ride to Asuncion to meet directly with PC medical team, venturing into Encarnacion seeking medical treatment would truly test my wobbly Spanish.  Luckily, PC takes medical very seriously and one of the PC doctors held my hand via cell phone basically the entire time.

Medical standards in Paraguay are right on par with those in the US.  Doctors receive nearly identical training and follow similar treatment methods.  However, some things just work differently.  For example, before I could see a doctor in the emergency room, I had to prove I could afford medical care- and no one accepts American Express.  (Special thanks to the PCMO for handling that bear!)  After convincing the woman at the desk that the hospital would indeed get paid if I saw a doctor, someone finally brought me over to wait for the orthopedic guy. 

Here’s another difference, I didn’t see much in the way of patient codling during my time in the hospital.  For example, I entered the facility barely able to stand and the receptionist walked me over to the doctor’s office.  As in I walked too.  After a short wait, the doctor examined my foot and sent me- again to walk- over for x-rays.  After radiology, I walked back over to the doctor’s office to wait for his evaluation.  As it turns out rather than break my foot, I managed to tear a ligament in my heel.  This requires a cast and fifteen days rest.  He explains this to me, confers (via cell) with the PCMO, and then she repeats his diagnosis back to me- using the strictest of tones, she stresses that I may not put any weight on my foot for the next two weeks.  The PCMO and I hang up, and the doctor WALKS me to room where I’ll get my cast.  Classic.

Fresh out of crutches at the hospital, Kevin goes over to the pharmacy around the corner while I wait for my cast.  Of course, they don’t have any.  So he tries another pharmacy, then another.  The 3rd largest city in Paraguay has evidently run out of crutches.  Someone suggests that he check Posadas.  No, Posadas is not the Paraguayan Walmart.  It’s a large city just over the Argentine border.  Now, crossing international borders without prior approval from our Country Director is a big no-no to begin with, but chances are that if Kevin right now crossed into Argentina he wouldn’t be able to re-enter Paraguay.  Paraguay makes visas tricky for Americans and currently our passports are in the capital waiting for visa extensions.  With no other reasonable options, Kevin and the orthopedic specialty pharmacy (they were out of crutches too) decide to order a set from Asuncion.  They will arrive the following day.  Annoying, but done.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, things start emptying out and I find myself alone in triage.  In Paraguay, businesses in the interior often close for siesta.  But a hospital in a major city?  Yes, evidently they shut down too.  With the now abandoned hospital starting to look like an opening scene of a zombie movie, my doctor, clearly ready for his nap, and an orderly then proceed to slap this half hard, half mesh sloppy cast on my leg.  Part of it is held together with plaster, half is held together by tape.  And did I mention no effort was made to clean my leg or stinky foot first.  Nary a single alcohol swab in sight.  Once the cast set, my doctor reminds me to stay off the foot and sends me on my way.  Once again, walking.  Oh, and as I hobbled out of the hospital, someone finally offered me a wheelchair.

The following day, Kevin returned to the pharmacy where the woman at the counter informs him that the crutches would arrive “enseguida”.  One of the most hateful phrases in the Spanish language, enseguida could actually mean “in a second” or in Kevin’s case (and more commonly), 90 minutes.  When the crutches do arrive, the clerk tells him the great news- they obtained a higher quality set.  What does higher quality mean this time?  Bigger- the crutches are designed for someone minimum 5”10’.  Even with the metric system, my 5”5’ falls a wee bit short of this mark.  Accepting defeat, and realizing that this is the best Paraguay has to offer in this situation, Kevin returns home with the tall man’s crutches.  While on the way, the wind picks up and thunder starts to rumble.  As he steps off the bus, rain begins to fall progressively harder as he walks the 2 kilometers back.  As soon as he arrives at our door, the rain stops.

I suppose the good thing about the questionable cast and bad crutches, is that they actually force me to keep doctor’s orders.  Since I can only last about 100 feet on them before requiring a long break, I spend most of my time confined to bed- the one covered in cast dandruff, with my leg gently raised.

Go ahead, call me a klutz.  It’s who I am.  At least in Paraguay it’s funny.

Note to self: If already laying on the shower floor, go ahead and shave legs.