Gratitud.

The alarm went off at 5:30am. I had positioned it next to my pillow, so there was no need to fight my way out of the mosquito net to hit the snooze. It was still dark, and one of those days that I really did not feel like getting out of bed, due more to emotional reasons than physical ones. But as I had a standing date for early morning maté with Ña Merarda,, I finally forced myself out of the net around 6am, needing to feed the chickens and pig before leaving and not wanting to arrive for maté at an embarrassingly late hour (sure sign of non-guapaness).

As I locked up my house and headed down the muddy road, the sun was just starting to creep over the distant ridge. A neighbor´s son passed me on his bike, already returning from some early morning errand, and at the corner, some young people home for a visit to their parents greeted me with hugs, besos, and invitations for nail-painting and a party tomorrow night. Despite feeling slightly accosted by such well-intentioned intensity at 6:15am, I arrived to Ña Merarda’s house already with a slightly less dreary mood. I arrived in good time as Ña Merarda was just finishing starting to build her daily fire to heat up the maté water. Over boiling bitter tea sipped quickly in short swallows, Ña Merarda, Don Severiano and I discussed herbal remedies, their children, life under Stroessner`s dictatorship, and one of the more foreign questions that I had asked in yesterday´s introductory family finance class – If you had a day free of activities, work, and responsibilities, what would you do?

This was nearly impossible for most of the women in the class to imagine.

Not even noticing the time, and not being especially eager to return back to my house to be alone again, I stayed for a breakfast of fried tortillas and mandioca, followed by a mound of oranges picked at that moment from the small orchard behind the house, by Ña Merarda’s two grandchildren that live with her. As I walked back home feeling stuffed with Paraguyan goodness, it was nearly 10am… only about 3 hours later than expected.

Back at my house, I sat down to listen to some music and shell some crotalaria seeds and soy beans, both from my demonstration plot. Soon thereafter, Isidora, the youngest girl that I took to the youth leadership camp earlier in the month, finally came by for a visit. I let her choose which photos of the trip she wanted to keep as souveniurs, and we talked about the upcoming charla series that she and the other two girls will be facilitating in the next month. All the while we were chatting and catching up, we were both shelling soy beans from the bowl in her lap. Meanwhile, my neighbor girls popped over to ask me if I’d like to go drink some tereré next door with their older sister Estela. I said sure, Isi headed back home, and I was off again for another visit.

Estela was at her mother’s house taking advantage of the semi-automatic washing machine and the running water – neither of which she has at her own house in the next community over. We sat down for some icy tereré with mint and lemongrass and laughed over her 5 year old daughter’s impressive cartwheels and botched attempts at somersaults. Estela is a year older than me, and is now going back to school at night, in town, in order to get her high school diploma. She then wants to study nursing, but confides to me that four years is really just such a long time. The daughter, Karen, is learning English in her private school in town, and Estela wants me to teach her as well since she herself cannot help in this particular subject, which Karen for which likes to berate her, as only five year olds can.

With my Ahecha photography class scheduled for 2pm, I excused myself from this noontime tereré session to quickly cook up some pasta for lunch. There was no time for the customary shower-before-meeting-time, but I put on dark jeans, redo my hair, trade my flipflops for real shoes, and call myself presentable. As I headed down the road again, I picked up four little girls along the way, two of whom are in my class. We arrived at school fifteen minutes early, with most of my students already there although mine is the only class they have today. Technically, it is vacation for Day of the Paraguayan Teacher.

However, as 2:00 approaches we were still missing two students and one camera so I made the decision to turn this into a short field trip. We all take the hike down the road towards the fields and ended up taking a narrow path to find both girls getting ready for class, planning to come after all. Back in class, today’s session focused on the use of color and using our imaginations to create stories about a photograph. The cameras went to the other half of the class today, but I was impressed by what I saw so far in the few glances I got of pictures that were taken by the first group. So far, my most creative and imaginative student is also the one least likely to follow rules, complete her homework, or come prepared to class. Her family is also one of the poorest.

On Monday I will collect the cameras to review the pictures and charge the batteries, and we ended on this note. As I passed one student’s house fifteen minutes later, I saw that she is already excitedly taking pictures of her various family members. I yelledl to her to keep up the good work, and she gave me a shy but cheeky grin. Half an hour later, as I was finishing up some dish-washing in buckets on my patio, Ña Merarda’s teenage son stopped by. His name is Gabi and as a first year computer science college student, he’s not around too much during the week but has come back for the weekend with his younger sister. Besides being an outstanding student, Gabi is also a great Paraguayan guitar and harp player and came today to practice with me on the steel string American guitar that my sister has lent me. He sang his classic American tune, Green Day’s “Time Of Your Life,” showed me the chord progressions, and helped me with some strumming. After telling him of my interest to learn some Paraguayan music, I now have a basic polka melody to practice for next week. As he left, it was dark and a storm had rolled in, bringing lightning and light rain with it.

Another day, another week, and another month are nearly over. As I retire into my little house, I am struck by how much I needed every person that I encountered today, and how grateful I am to each of them for turning this potentially awful day into a truly enjoyable one.