"Two Amanda's!" -Don Poli

She made it!

Long story short, Marissa came down to Paraguay for 2 weeks this July

and we had a phenomenal time. I think she will return home more exhausted

and sick of buses/airports/Spanish than ever before, but hopefully it was all worth it. :)

Here are some short summary photos of our first week in Paraguay, mostly spent at my site in the countryside. I attempted to introduce Ris to the finer points of Paraguayan culture and cuisine, and I think it was a success. Check it out...

2:30am arrival after a 24 hour layover in Lima, Peru. Que guapa!

And doesn't she look fantastic, Ladies and Gentlemen.

We terere-ed and washed our clothes by hand.

That's idodine pill water, NOT my well water, no worries.

Tranquilo time in the hammock.

Nothing beats some hot mandi'o right out of the pot.

At first, Marissa was very reluctant to believe that digging with a machete actually was much easier than digging with the shovel.

She soon learned.

And we planted and transplanted some flowers and trees. This is a sunflower.

We ate hot chipa at the neighbors'. She "knows how to eat it!"

(Direct translation from Guarani)

We spent July 4th at the American Embassy. Look how festive our cupcakes are.

We took long walks down dirt roads.

Marissa learned some key Guarani phrases and the all-too-important "al Pelo!" or Thumbs Up.

This can rectify any awkward situation.

One thing Marissa told me was, "Amanda, if Mom met the people here in the community, and saw how much they care about you, she wouldn't worry half as much as she does."

That was an amazing statement to hear, especially considering how apparent this fact was to Marissa after only a few days, and after meeting just 4 or 5 neighboring families. I know that I am surrounded here by a lot of amazingly warm and hardworking people, but it struck me that already I am starting to take that for granted. And I don't want to.

It was incredible to be able to share some of my day-to-day life here in Paraguay with my sister. She adapted much more quickly than I had ever imagined to the "rustic" realities of my site, and it was truly a pleasure just to hang, catch up, cook, laugh, and reminisce - just as it always is. As the saying goes, life is in the details, and it can be difficult for me to share these details that make each day here worthwhile, because to fully explain their significance, I usually have to explain vocabulary words and cultural situations and basically give a lot of uninteresting backstory that bores the person I'm speaking to even before I get to the heart of the subject. So sometimes I just try to keep it short. Simple. Uncomplicated. Individual. But that's not life here at all. It's about the interactions between people and across boundaries of culture, language, age, gender, etc. Like how my 12 year old neighbor now shouts "Bara-no-ki!" as a greeting to me across the field, how Na Venancia always winks at me to let me in on the joke as we're mate-ing around her fire, or how I now know and can join in on the constant gossip about the weather, the foot traffic on the road, and the price of cheese. And just by being here, Ris got to take that in for herself, and I could never really explain in spoken or written word. Hopefully she can share a taste of that with you back home as well.

What a blessing to have my sister here with me. Che avy'a!!!

Oh, and as to the title of this post, yes that is a direct quote from one of the señores as we walked up to his house. Contrast that with Argentina, where fellow hostel dwellers couldn't even tell we were sisters!?! Weird, eh.