So I realize I haven’t updated anything in a while. But I have thought about updating. Seriously I have even thought (more than once!) Oh, I should write about this! I even went so far as to create a jpg image of an interesting screen capture last week. I was going to explain more about it (It exemplifies the weather patterns here! And the futility of predicting the weather because of the constant incorrectness of the predictions! And how it is insanely hot all week and then rains as soon as I go to the pool!) but it just never happened.

Finally here I am, I will give the fastest recap possible because, I am at work right now and I should be doing other more work-related tasks.

The first thing I can remember not writing about the past few weeks is that I am taking training classes to be a teacher at the CCPA (American-Paraguayan Cultural Center). These classes mainly consist of doing group activities, sometimes presenting things to the class, and reading articles about learning. For me it’s like going back to 3rd grade (We made collages out of magazines yesterday to describe ourselves). But I imagine that these activities are a good way for the directors to get an idea of how wwell the other students speak English. There are a few other Americans in the class: Two from Missouri, one from Pittsburg KS, one from Seattle, one from Tampa, and a Puerto Rican girl that is really from Rhode Island. Anyway I have 3 more classes left and then they will decide who is going to teach what. My plan is to do some advanced classes on Saturdays.

I also recently turned 23. For my birthday, Nathalie and I had a big asada (barbeque) at our hotel. She invited everyone at the French embassy so there were like 20 french people there. As for me, an interesting mishmash of friends showed up: Ruth, Moncho, Jose, some friends from my CCPA class, and a band that I met the week before. They didn’t play or anything but they just always hang out in a group. Sol and Flo were in San Ber so we had dinner all together the next night on my actual birthday at a really good Italian restaurant.

We got a whole bunch of food, incl. veggie burgers. At midnight Dorothea and Nathalie gave me a cake with a candle… then lured me away from it to throw me in the pool. Fortunately I got my revenge, when we threw Nathalie in the pool, too.

Next up was Valentine’s Day, or Día de Los Enamorados. It is not as commercialized here as in the US. Only 1 week before did I even see any Valentine decorations or promotions. I visited a few flower shops to set up displays of Chandon and Valentine presents for work. Valentine’s day is a lot more “couples” oriented here, no one really gives cards to their friends or family, they just do something special with their significant other. Normally I really don’t care about Valentine’s Day, since my birthday is more important and just a few days before, but this year I felt a lot of pressure about it. In the end I ended up going to a pub with Nathalie to hang out, which was fun, but I’m not going to go into much more detail than that!

For my birthday, Ruth and Moncho brought me 12 cans of “nieve” or snow. This is a product used basically just for carnaval to cover people in foam. It is kind of like shaving cream but not as dense. This present came in very handy the next weekend when I went to Encarnación, Paraguay (6 hrs on bus) for Carnaval.

Carnaval was so amazing and so much fun. The Carnaval in Encarnacion was nothing like the one in Brazil, which is enormous in scope and over-the-top in terms of the participants and extravagance of the floats and costumes. But, we were able to get front-row seats and experience it all, from a less commercialized perspective. I will post videos tomorrow to explain more!

**Intermission** Click the play button for some Carnaval-esque music. (I couldn’t find any of the actual songs they played but this is a fairly popular song on the radio and MTV)

You can see my photos from Carnaval on Flickr. Basically, everyone goes to this closed off section of street which has extra lighting and is surrounded by seats and bleachers. There are VIP sections sponsored by various companies (we were across from the Coke Zero section as you can see in the photos). They play lots of cumbia and Latin pop songs over the speakers and the whole crowd starts dancing, jumping, and singing along. In front of the bleachers, men carrying coolers shout “Leche, leche, leche!” selling beer, and little boys and men alike sell more cans of foam. Every person who is not selling something gets instantly foamed by the whole crowd when they walk by in the front. And, anyone in the crowd (or in the streets of the city all day) can and will spray you. The good news is that I kept my camera from being ruined by the foam, but the bad news is that I ran out of batteries and didn’t get to take many photos.

Around 9:30 pm, the King and Queen of Carnaval made their way down the street and Carnaval began. Then each club comes down the street playing music and dancing. Some clubs were just women dancing samba with their intricate feathery costumes, some had women and men, some had kids, and some were just drum corps. The drums were my favorite, there would be 30 or 40 drummers, with various types and sizes of drums, playing along to their song (usually another Latin pop or cumbia song).

Around 3 am we finally left, but Carnaval was still going strong. It was pretty cold, especially since we were soaking wet from the foam. I was ready to go inside and be warm.

That bring us to this week. I have just been in the same old pattern. Dorothea and I are going to the Don Omar (The King of Reggaeton) concert on Saturday night. Tickets are ridiculously cheap, for us anyway, and he is playing in the soccer stadium that is in walking distance from home.

I am also trying to plan out my “vacation” time that is coming up in April. My sister Meredith is coming to visit the first week of April, which will also be Holy Week here. I am trying to think of someplace for us to go outside of Paraguay that is not Buenos Aires… I am already going to be there from April 6 to 16th and that should be more than enough time! Plus, I am trying to think of things for us to do for a few days within Asunción. Not so easy, since there aren’t any tourist sights here! Anyway if anyone has a suggestion, let me know.

Oh yeah and evidently Bad Religion is coming to Quilmes Rock. I think I might know one of their songs. Yeah, that one that Sublime covered. Oh and Audioslave is still not confirmed. I wish I knew what was going on with them, someone just tell them not to break up until after the concert.

Check back soon for more songs and videos, I plan on uploading more tomorrow night!