Thomas in Paraguay

Still Re-winding

2009-07-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

More! Are you excited? Good!

From last Thursday - Monday I ended up going to a party every single night. (Definition of "party" in this case: music, dancing, food, getting home after midnight.) Crazy, right? I felt quite popular.
Thursday: Despedida for Julia (Germany) at Rocío's house. Basically an okay time. Julia ended up making a small speech on request and said some incredibliy nice things about Paraguay, her school friends, AFS, and her host family. Ridiculously touching. Lots of moist-eyed hugging followed.
Friday: Quince in the Sheraton. The birthday girl was a friend of someone in my AFS friend group, so somehow we all ended up going. Unfortunately, I managed to miss the memo that this was the single ritziest venue in Asunción for a Quinceañera [look it up if you don't already know] and showed up in jeans, Birkenstocks, and a t-shirt...¡Que avergüenza! It's okay though, it's really funny to look back on now. The actual party was a bit disappointing. There were lots of free treats (ice cream, chocolate, cake, cheeseburgers, etc.), but the atmosphere was just okay. After the party I hung out with Maurice and Andreas (who was staying over in Luque) and we had probably a better time just chilling.
Saturday: Fourth of July party with Jacob at Rocío's house. I went with Jacob and his host dad to buy some small fireworks and then we pretty much had Round #2 of Thursday. This time got a semi-pro DJ to handle music. Besides the fireworks there wasn't much USA-related themes, but it was good to hang with the Unitedstatesians from the Soccer program.
Sunday: Coyote. My old school (Santa Clara) organized a party at the discoteca Coyote so I went with my host brother José and his friend. ...Kind of a dud. It was good to see some of my ex-compañeros again though.
Monday: Serkan's (Turkey) house. I met up with a couple people at 6:30 at Monte Libano for lomito arabe (it's really the same thing as a "gyro" at a middle eastern restaurant in the US). Really tasty. The consensus was something along the lines of "Yeah, I'm kind of tired, I don't really feel like going out tonight"... and yet somehow that's exactly what we ended up doing. This was definitely my favorite of the five nights. The pieces just fell into place: an invitation surfaced to a party at Serkan's house, we ran into some people we thought we'd never see again, S.'s host brother's b-day was happening at the same time, etc. Just one of those really fun nights. At about 11 PM the fun got interrupted -- some people fom Ciudad del Este had come into town early for their departure* and wanted us to bring them to the party. It was a lo-o-ong way to where they were, but Hannah and I went to fetch them all the same. However when we got there they had changed their mind and decided to stay...gahhhh. Let's just say that's not how I'd planned on spending those particular 2 1/2 hours. [But it's okay -- I've since forgiven them.] The party at Serkan's had wound down so we walked over to Sam's (USA) to chill with his Paraguayan friends. That was all well and good, but by this point I was quite tired and no longer at my best. At around 5 AM I said goodbye, as the buses had started running again. When I finally got home I did thankfully have a key to get into the gate -- but the house itself was locked. (At about 9 PM I had told my mom I'd be staying over at a friend's, so it's my fault not theirs.) Not knowing what to do, I just grabbed a towel for a pillow and curled up on the lawn. ... Shortly after I was awakened by a shriek from my stunned maid. My mom came out rather amused and said, "...Thomas, you doofus...why didn't you ring the doorbell? I would have let you in!" In truth I had not wanted to bother them...but yeah, that probably would have been a way better option.
Tuesday: saying goodbye to everyone. After a short night of sleep I squeezed in a trip to the gym and went off to the airport. Lots of very emotional departures. It didn't me until later though. Actually, when I wasn't saying goodbye, Byron and I just sat and cracked jokes. (We were roasting the idea of exchanges between Hawaii and Oregon -- "Why not have intercultural dog exchange? Yeah, I'll watch your dog for a year, okay? What about intercultural inanimate object exchange? Yeah, I'm going to put my lamp over here for a while, is that cool?") However, as I was going home I felt a deep sinking feeling. I guess I had gotten attached to some of the August-arrival people without realizing it. There are a lot of people I'm really going to miss.
Since Tuesday: very little. The partying, lack of sleep, and saying goodbye to everyone really took it out of me, so I've largely been taking it easy.
Buenos Aires: cancelled. Augh, I am so bummed about this. Suffice it to say that Byron and I were very, very far along with our plans. Basically, we're not going to be able to go because of the gripe porcina / H1N1 / swine flu thing. At first I was very skeptical of the decision...but after seeing the statistics about what the illness has done in Buenos Aires, I guess I would be cautious too if I were AFS USA. Fortunately, it looks like we're substituting a trip to Iguazu falls in the Buenos Aires trip's place.
More pictures, same deal as last time: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025775&id=1505970077&l=8e8a9cf764
Just over 3 weeks left...Is that even possible? I can't believe half a year has already zip-lined by. There will actually be a lot of things I'll miss: the people I'm close with, the total freedom, the low stress, the opportunity to speak spanish, etc. Yet at the same time, I have an awful lot waiting for me when I get home, so I feel like when it comes time to leave I'll be ready.

Lots of love,

Thomas

*The airport is in Luque, conveniently for me.

Re-wind

2009-07-09T06:23:00.000-07:00

Hello hello!

So, I've been really short on time for blogging and thus have missed several important updates. Here are some short takes. I'll come back with more within the next few days.

Most Tuesdays and Fridays: I go to Rocío's house and teach English to Lichy from 5-6. What that actually means is that we get there about 5:30, work till 7, talk and drink cocido until 9 when we say goodbye, then talk another hour at the gate, and then I go home, arriving about 10:15. Gotta love the hora Paraguaya (Paraguayan time). But really, Lichy has been incredibly nice and helpful and is probably one of my best Paraguayan friends, so those are usually good times.
Most Wednesdays: Many of the exchange students in the Gran Asunción area meet up in Mariscal Lopez Shopping (a mall). It's not because we particularly enjoy the mall, but rather it's someplace safe and where lots of buses come (i.e. convenient for everyone). Initially I was opposed to spending lots of time with the exchange students ("I didn't come to Paraguay to meet people from the USA"), but they are very good company.
Friday, 26 June 2009: First day teaching English in a school. Never in all of my exchange have I done something so rewarding! I was working with 3rd graders and I did an activity on basic actions (jump, turn around, laugh, etc.) that combined stick figure drawings with a follow-the-leader type game with movements. (Partially based on something I did when I was home schooled, partially out of my own head.) It went ridiculously well. Discipline had been a concern (classrooms can get crazy here) but I surprised myself by not having any problems. Besides teaching, I'm helping the librarian catalog all the books they have because she has limited computer skills. With her I worked out that I'll teach one grade per day from 2nd-6th, for 45 minutes. The coming week was not nearly so perfect , but it continued to be both gratifying and challenging. It is now quite clear to me that I should have done AFS's community service program instead of the school program. Sigh. I guess there's no use what-if?-ing. I'll just make the most of the time that has now been given me.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009: Hannah and Emerson, who arrived last August, took me out exploring a little and we got lomito arabe. It's really just the same as a gyro from a middle-eastern restaurant in the US, but considering how tasty those are, that's just fine. Both H. and E. are really great, along with everyone else who got here in August, so I'm kind of bummed I didn't meet any of them until almost June. :/ Once we got to the mall it was just a typical afternoon -- chilling on the outdoor patio, getting ice cream, etc. That night Byron invited me to a Beatles a capella cover concert with his family. How random, right? In truth, the performance itself was kind of mediocre but it was still enjoyable to hear. Also, Byron's family is phenomenal. Quite jealous of him!
Monday, 8 June 2009: Mauricio, Byron, Igna, Lichy, and I (Germany, USA, Belgium, and Paraguay, respectively) went over to Abbey's house for the purpose of cooking pie. I mean, that's as good an excuse as any, right? It was a nice evening. Byron told us about how some random Paraguayan had gotten Byron's cell phone number mixed up with that of his girlfriend and was now sending him lots of forlorn messages. Tranlsated, "Oh, my darling, why don't you text me back? I love you so!" to which Byron responds "Yeah, I don't have any money for saldo (cell phone minutes/credit), can you buy some and send it to me?" Hence Byron had free saldo for about a week. ...I really can't tell it right, but it was quite funny.
Sunday, 28 June 2009: The AFS USA Play-Soccer-In-Paraguay program started. To make everything easier they place all the participants in the same town, which by luck is Luque, where I live! One participant, Jacob, is living in Rocío's house so I get to see him a bit. I've met most of them by now and they're a decent bunch. Hanging out with them reminds me of the immense amount of practical knowledge I've learned about life here, so that's fun, and confidence-boosting.
Guaraní lessons: not going to work out. They turned out to be quite expensive and not what I was looking for. However, I've gotten a couple of my extended family members to sit down and work with me, and I also a found an illustrated Spanish-Guaraní dictionary which I go to for help occassionally.
Pictures! I finally got my camera cord to work again! They're on facebook, but they're still accessible to the general public: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025672&id=1505970077&l=5950037954
Next post: saying goodbye to everyone from last August's year-long program, my Thursday-Monday five-party marathon, Buenos Aires?, Paulo Coelho, etc.

Camp in CDE, Weather, School

2009-06-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

This weekend I attended a camp in Ciudad del Este, which is essentially the other big city in Paraguay (the first being Asunción, 30 minutes from my house). The objective of the camp was to get students thinking about their return home, and everything that implies (saying goodbye to host family and friends, preparing to re-enter into US culture, etc.). Us "Winter Semester" program people shared the camp with the "Fall Year" people. In some ways that was great -- those of us who have only been here 4 months saw see how far we could go (and really, the year-long people have learned SO much, it's kind of inspiring). But the trouble was that the year people leave in just under 1 month, whereas my group still has a full 2 months....So for me the sessions weren't particularly inspiring, but that's okay. If it were me looking at recession-era budgets, I probably would have decided to combine the camps for our two groups, too.

But it was a good weekend. AFS took us to see Itaipu dam, which is actually the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World), as well as Monday falls. Both were great photo-ops and cool to see for their sheer size alone. One of our activities I did find really interesting. They sat us down and had us do a "Time Capsule Letter" type of game where we wrote letters to ourselves that they will mail to us in 6 months....I wonder what I'll think of what I wrote in December 2009? ... Saturday we also got another ultimate frisbee game going, my third here in Paraguay. The only available place was a tennis court and the net couldn't be lowered, but that didn't stop us. We just called it "ULTIMATE ultimate frisbee" and then either ran around or jumped over the net. That night there was a big dance party, and I think most people had a good time. Sunday we had to say a lot of goodbyes, since people are pretty well spread across Paraguay. Luckily for me I'll get to see all of the people I'm close to again before anyone leaves, so it wasn't to taxing for me, but there were a lot of tearful farewells. After that was taken care of, I made the 5 1/2 hour busride back home along with everyone else from Gran Asunción. On the way we stopped for some particularly delicious fresh chipa (Paraguayan cheese bread). When I got finally got home (a bit late), I had an interesting discovery: when I walked in the door, I had the sensation that I was "coming home." I guess that means I'm starting to settle into my home here, which is definitely one of the main objectives of an AFS exchange. :)

School life has been fun. Last Monday I was texting (in Spanish of course) as I was walking back to class after recess...and entered the wrong room. This was really hilarious for my classmates and is still an ongoing inside joke. Also, I don't know how much I've talked about this, but I've really enjoyed the attitude of sharing here. Whenever people buy food they share it, and people buy food all the time so it makes for a very friendly, generous ambiance.

The weather has gotten coooooold! Or, some times at least. At one point last week it was 4º Celsius / 39º Fahrenheit when I woke up. But about half of the days it's sunny and so in the afternoon it's really pretty and refreshing.

-Thomas

The Chaco, The Present, The Future

2009-06-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

(of my exchange)

Can you believe it's already June? Time seems to be moving really fast. Granted, not so long I would have said it was going at snail-pace, but still, June came out of nowhere.

At any rate, I spent this past weekend in the Chaco region of Paraguay on an AFS-run trip. Overall a good time, although I wish we could have seen more. I got to meet some really cool people who had arrived in August which was great, and it was nice to be with the AFS USA friends I came here with.

On the trip we split time between the Mennonite colony, local sites of interest, our hotel, and assorted grocery stores where we did our pit stop-ing (not to mention some 21 hours on a double-decker tour bus - actually really fun). Oh, and something sort of weird/interesting - the Mennonites here speak German, and since most of the participants happened to be German it sort of felt like I'd slipped off from South America to Europe...

... For specifics on the trip to the Chaco, check out my friend Hannah B.'s blog: http://usatoparaguay.blogspot.com/. I made the mistake of reading her blog before I wrote this and am now disinclined to recap the same things she already did so artfully... She remembered way more details than I could, and I was with her for much of the trip so a lot of her most recent blog pertains to me.

Sadly, my time at my current school (CCT) is coming to a close. Everyone in tercero (senior year) has a mandatory 6-week individual internship that starts June 15. Because it's a technical school, they'll all be working in factories or with electronics, so it's not an option for me to continue with them. (...How didn't we catch this before I transferred here?) This is hard for me because I really did like this group a lot, and I'm disappointed that my exchange will essentially be cut into 1/3's. But most of my friends from school live relatively close, and they'll still be getting together on weekends, so hopefully I can continue to hang out with them some.

As far as my plans post-CCT, I had these three options: drop down to a lower grade (but I'm already older than everyone/struggling with the maturity gap...), change schools again, or find some sort of work to do on my own. Option #3 was by far the most appealing to me, so that's what I'm currently in the process of inventing. Ideally, I'll split time between the following activities: teaching English, helping out at a guardería (sort of like a daycare), and taking language lessons of my own. If I were to teach English it would of course not be for pay, as AFS doesn't allow that, and it would either be at a school or a private institution. The guardería thing is what a lot of my friends in the Community Service program do, and they say they find their work really rewarding. And then finally, I want to take some intensive language courses. My options are either Portuguese or Guaraní. ... So those are my options. Nothing definite has been established, but I have high hopes for this new phase of my trip because it promises to have some more independence and variety in store for me.

Travel is also high on my to-do list. I'm currently cooking up a plan to spend my winter vacation in Buenos Aires, which I think would be phenomenal. Also, after getting a glimpse of life in the Chaco, I think I do want to spend a few days in el Interior (the countryside), just to experience that lifestyle a little. My English student (whose name I forgot to mention earlier: Lichy) has some connections there because of some missionary work she did, so that's promising. Last, a couple of my AFS friends who don't live in Gran Asunción have invited me to come stay at their houses for a while, and I definitely would love to see more of Paraguay...

Now for some quick updates about my homelife. Basically, I just "keep on keepin' on." My family and I have fallen into a routine, and that's not likely to change in the remaining time I have here. No big developments, but some items have progressed. I am FINALLY starting to decipher the maid's accent, so now we talk a good bit. Unfortunately, I still have not been able to get very close with any of my 3 brothers, but we are at least comfortable around one another. My host parents and I don't talk much, but I now understand it's just because they're not especially talkative, and that they do in fact like me pretty well.

Last two months, here I come! Love to everyone back home,

-Thomas

P.S. Any requests for topics you want me to blog on? I'm never sure what it is I ought to be writing about... And hey, all you future AFS people, if you have any questions, feel free to message me on Facebook (I'm the only Thomas Bryenton on the website).

"I want something delicious and sweet and cold...This milkshake is awesome-extreme-ULTIMATE! Adjectives adjectives adjectives!"

2009-05-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason my brain has been really scrambled, so I'm going to do the bulleted list thing again. It really does help me keep the rambling in check (some...).

All last week there was a strike for public school teachers, so I basically had a vacation.
Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with my family, I was accidentally locked out of my house for about about 30 hours last week. I ended up just staying with my "second host family" (the one that's previously hosted 7 exchange students). At first I was quite annoyed, but it really wasn't my host family's fault...
Friday I "cooked" for my host family for the first time. Just PB&J for our merienda (afternoon snack), but they were very appreciative of the gesture. I think I'll try and do more of that. Friday was also mother's day here, so I combined the snack with gift-giving. It was a quite a nice afternoon, and smoothed over the locked-out-of-the-house incident.
I've started teaching English, to a single student. A local AFS volunteer here lacks the money to pay for classes in an institution, but she needs to learn English for her job. The unofficial way in which she's paying for lessons is that she's very social/has lots of connections, and so whenever I'm looking for something interesting to do, she can make very good recommendations. Works for me.
That night I went to a birthday party at the house of another AFSer. We stayed out kind of late (2 AM, which is actually not late at all by Paraguayan standards), so we took a taxi home and a different AFS friend spent the night at my house.
Saturday my English student took a group of my friends and I out to see the town of Atyra, "The Cleanest City in Paraguay" (titled that way because it's one of very few places where people are serious about not littering...). It was indeed very pretty. Our guide (my student's friend) was extremely talkative, but it was still a good time.
My computer is not getting along with my camera, so it seems that I will be unable to upload pictures any time soon. I haven't taken as many as I'd have liked to, but I do have some good shots.
I miss home so much! But I guess I'll try and suck it up.. Only 2.5 more months left in South America.

Suerte,

Movie madness, hamburger parties, progress

2009-05-07T04:24:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!! Okay, so...where have I been? Good question. After two months of not blogging I sort of feel out of practice, but I'll do what I can. I'll hit some big stuff, and then I'll cover some recent events.

The single biggest piece of news is that I changed schools. My new school is 4 blocks away, and I really like it (as far as Paraguayan school goes). It's a public school as well as a trade school, which would normally mean trouble, but entrance is based on test scores so all the kids are relatively motivated and nice. A couple of my classmates have actually said directly that they thought I'd assimilated into the class really well, so I'm feeling pretty good about that situation.

Oh, other big news: college. I'm going to Middlebury College in the fall - go Panthers! I think I might write a seperate post about Middlebury stuff just so I don't clog up this one. But yeah. I'm really happy about that.

Finally, let me re-cap my weekend really fast. I would normally not bother to tell you ALL the humdrum details of what I'm doing, but I have a reason: I would say (completely subjectively) that this was my first overall good weekend here in Paraguay, which is some big progress. For that reason alone I feel like being complete.

Friday: Typical school day, blah blah blah, reading a C. S. Lewis science fiction book in Spanish (go me!), answering my friends' questions about the US/the English language/my daily life, etc. etc. After that I went to the gym, and then directly to the local AFS meeting. (Once a month the AFS students in the city of Luque get together with our local volunteer to discuss how our exchange is going and all that jazz.) The other 6 students seem to be doing remarkably well. For me that was something of a revelation because when we first got here pretty much everyone was struggling and fairly unhappy. Now that we're adjusting things seem to be looking up quite a bit. Some of the activities in which they're participating include: lessons in Paraguayan traditional dance, jewelry-making, Guaraní lessons, rugby, and more.

Once the meeting was over and I could go home and shower I went over to a classmate's house to watch a movie with some friends. Silent Hill was our film of choice, which I wasn't particularly wild about, but it was fun. We ordered pizza -- pizza here: good, not great -- and played a variation of the card game "B. S." which I did like.

Normally I would have been content to call it a day after all that - but no! One of my friends really wanted to go to a hamburgueseada (a party where they serve hamburgers), but didn't have anyone to go with him. It's much more socially accptable to go out in groups and I wanted to help him out so I took one for the team and and went with him. I was already kind of tired, but once people started actually dancing I had a good time.

Saturday: I went to the gym in the morning and then hustled off to meet my AFS friend Andreas who was having an asado (barbecue) for this birthday, in another city. (Note/aside: I'm not sure if I've stated this before, but basically I get together with other AFS students about once a week.) Present were AFSers from Thailand, Germany, and the USA, plus a few people from his school. After the delicious food we went back to the mall in Asunción to hang out some more and to see Star Trek. Personally, I was not impressed by the movie, but it does the trick of you need a Trekkie fix. Oh, I also saw X-Men: Wolverine a while back, and even though it's really nothing more than a flick I really enjoyed it.

Sunday: My family and I went to lunch at our grandmother's house, which is what we do pretty much every week. Lots of food, lots of uncles and cousins. I went out to hang at a (different) mall in the afternoon. No movie or anything like that, but I did find a bakery that sells REALLY good cake for $1.60 per large a slice. When you have a sweet tooth like me and you're in a country where desert isn't really a big deal, that's a valueable discovery...

After the mall I decided to spend some time at the house of my Thai friend's former host family. They've previously hosted 7 (!) exchange students, so they've been really great as far as helping me out and giving me advice. And plus they're just really nice.

I was having a nice time talking to them when out of the blue my friend from school called and gave me some rather exciting news -- his daughter had been born! How crazy is that? I had been aware that his girlfriend of three years, also a classmate of mine, was pregnant, but I had thought the due date was still a ways off. But naturally I was busy being happy for him so I didn't stop to think. When I arrived at the mother's house, I learned that, actually, the baby had been born yesterday, but now was just the first time that was convenient to have people over. Both the mother and father have very supportive families, so I think they're going to be just fine. After we'd seen the baby, we went out for empanadas -- typical Paraguayan "fast food" -- and the parents took care of the baby. An exciting night.

And THAT was my weekend. Kind of atypical in that I was so busy (a feeling which I love and miss terribly), and for that I thought I'd just type up everything. Now I'm all "blogged out" and I can't think of any clever summaries. But I really do think this was a mid-sized turning point for me, in that I'm finally starting to feel semi-adjusted to a Paraguayan version of Thomas Bryenton's life. And hey, I really will try and be better about updating this. Anyway, love you all and miss you lots.

What Language Should I Learn Next?

2009-03-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

Give me advice! I might take it.

Note: this is the same text as the Facebook note I just published.

For me this is actually a pretty big decision, and I´m open to suggestions. Whatever I choose will probably be at least a Minor, maybe a Major, and I will likely study abroad in a country that speaks the language. The ones I´m considering most seriously are, in order: Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, French, and German. Japanese and Greek are possibilities, but I´m less strongly enticed. I guess I´d consider others as well if you can convince me.

Arabic is number one because I feel like Arabic-speaking countries are places where there´s a lot of turmoil and where I could maybe do some good -- not to mention the amazing job opportunities. Portuguese is number two because it´s my favorite-sounding language...although there isn´t quite so much that I could do with it. Italian & French are there just because I like them and they´re pretty. And German -- a slight underdog, but not down and out. I´m not in love with how it sounds, but I am strongly interested in Austrian and German culture -- maybe more so than any of the others.

So, there you have it -- those are my thoughts. What are yours?

Disclaimer: my options will be greatly affected by what college I decide to attend. Of the four schools I like best, Yale offers all of my prospective languages, Middlebury offers many, Pomona offers some, and Bowdoin offers a few. The quality of the study abroad options and the ambiance of the department will further color my thought process as well. I´ll know for sure as early as April 1 (!). But for now it´s just fun to speculate.

Colegio ("Santa Clara"), AFS Camp

2009-03-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

Long time, no blog. I don´t remember everything I meant to cover, but I´ll just do what I can remember.

Yesterday I got back from a weekend-long AFS camp in the resort town of San Bernardino. It wasn´t fantastic, but it was pretty good all-in-all. Some noteworthy things:

Many aspects of Paraguayan culture have specific links to their history. For example, take their great emphasis on men´s virility. From 1865-1870 Paraguay fought the War of the Triple Alliance against Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, and during that time 90% of the male population was killed. Pretty staggering. As a result, the surviving men were treated with with great respect and got their way with pretty much everything. ("Can I get you some food? Great! Can I have your children? Great!" -- the humorous / somewhat exaggerated example given by the staff.)
Continuing the trend of people thinking I look like a celebrity, someone at camp was convinced I look like Hugh Grant...I think that´s a stretch, but I won't complain.
I got a lot of compliments on my Spanish, which is great. However, part of my positive reception is, I think, my accent more than my grammar, vocabulary, or ability to understand. (By the way, apparently I have a Mexican-sounding accent.) I was disappointed to find that upon return to the Acuña household I still struggled with my family when they spoke at "full tempo." But then again, I think the progress is coming, even though I can´t really see it.
Perhaps I should briefly touch on the content of the camp. Its purpose was to check in with everyone 1 month into our stay. Our sessions covered topics like: history and culture of Paraguay, living harmoniously with our host families, and adjusting to school.
It was nice to be with people from several different countries...But it made me miss CISV.
A lot of people are experiencing basically the exact same issues that I have been (trying to learn the sense of time, struggling with the different attitude toward school, having a hard time with the language, etc.). The degree of difficulty varies greatly person to person, but it was nice to be reminded that I´m not alone.

School! Yikes, I don´t even know where to start...

Being an exchange student comes with a certain degree of celebrity, which a blessing-curse, thrill-terror kind of phenomenon. Whenever I meet someone, they want to know everything about me -- I´m flattered to be the center of attention, but it´s exhausting. Sometimes I really miss normalcy, but it´s cool all the same.
Actual life in the classroom is crazy. To be truthful, it´s not so different from Austin-East (the inner-city public school I attended in the US for 10th and 11th grade). There´s a lot of noise during class and less work gets done than I´m used to. I´m having a hard time withholding judgement, but from what I hear it gets easier to deal with as time passes.
There are 18 different classes. Yes, really, 18. That´s probably part of why the classrooms are so hectic -- because of the overload of topics, students never really get immersed in a subject...
Ironically, Chemistry is making some sense to me in Spanish, whereas in English I had such a poor experience in 10th grade I thought the subject had been ruined for me forever. Good work, Santa Clara.
Almost always, classes change with the teacher going to a new room and the students staying put.
I have to wake up at 5 AM in the morning. Not fun. School starts at 7 and we have an hour-long schoolbus ride into Asunción. The solution is that I try to nap for as long as I can each day.
It´s good to finally have more people to interact with. The tough thing about this is that it had taken me my entire time in Paraguay to adapt to my first pattern of activities -- just having AFS Spanish class -- and I´m afraid I´m going to have to go through the adaptation process from scratch, which is going to be really challenging. Most likely this is the start of a postive thing for me, so I´ll try to keep my chin up and be patient.

Okay, well there´s probably a lot more that I should write, but I guess I can always come back and add more. Take care,

Really, the bulleted list thing works for me

2009-03-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

It´s just a lot easier that way.

Yesterday someone told me I looked like Michael Phelps. I don´t see the resemblance, but I feel like that´s automatically a compliment...
On Friday I took the plunge and rode the bus by myself from home to Asunción, with my goals being to change my US$ to Guaraníes, work out, and then buy something. Everything worked itself out by the end of my excursion, but it did not start well. The busdriver would not give me my change, and I felt very frustrated and embarassed to have been ripped off...but it turned out that he just hadn´t initially had the correct change, so that was all okay. In Asunción, I hunted down two banks but they were both closed. (Apparently their hours are very short, just 9:30-1:30 on weekdays.) At bank #2 I asked a security guard for help, and he told me where I could get the money changed fairly. Once that was taken care of, I walked to the gym; I had an okay workout, but for now I´m really better off when I have Juan & Edgar to guide me / spot me / check my form / etc. Next I went to el supermercado and my first purchase with my newly-acquired Guaraníes -- banana yogurt. Delicious. (As a side note, yogurt here is different -- you drink it.) Finally, I successfully rode the jam-packed bus home, without having gotten lost even once. Pretty happy about all of that.
So, as I´ve maybe mentioned one of the other people in my AFS Spanish class is a girl from the US...and guess what? You know that town in Oregon that had the first-ever transsexual mayor in the US? That´s her town!
In my Unitedstatesian house we have 4 computers and 1 TV; in my Paraguayan house we have 1 computer and 4 TVs. Thought that was an interesting contrast.
I´m going to start school this coming Monday. It will hopefully make me less bored and give me some people to meet outside of my family and cousins, so I´m mostly looking forward to that.

Till next time,

P.S. Unitedstatesian...well, I think it should be a word. "American" is pretty inaccurate.

No School, Wild Buses

2009-02-24T05:43:00.000-08:00

So, I guess I should explain my situation with school. AFS Paraguay requires that I complete 40 hours of Spanish lessons before I begin school at Santa Clara. Summer vacation ended Monday, but I still have another two weeks or so before I can start attending normal classes. I´m a little annoyed because the classwork is really easy and I have nothing to do except for those two hours in the morning, but it´s no big deal. Luckily, my classmates are nice, and it´s interesting to spend time with people from Germany, Thailand, the USA, and Paraguay (teacher).

On the way home from Spanish class last Friday, I rode the bus home by myself. All my life I´ve battled with a terrible sense of direction, so it was a personal victory. Since school was about to start up again for my host brothers, I needed to figure that out pretty quickly. Buses here kind of scared me at first -- they don´t always come to a complete stop for you to get on and off. It sounds dangerous as I´m writing about, but in practice it works perfectly and no longer bothers me. However, driving in general here is a bit frightening to someone from the US. The rules of the road in Paraguay are as follows: "There are no rules, as long as you don´t hit anyone." You can swerve to the opposite side of the road to avoid potholes -- which are plentiful and deep -- even if it means getting mere feet away from oncoming traffic. This works because cars drive pretty slowly, I´d say around 20 MPH in my neighborhood, 35 MPH maximum in Asunción. (However, everything here is in kilometers so I can´t be too precise.) Although, this is of course not univerally true, as there certainly are many good drivers here.

Good news: my blog may be featured on AFS International´s official student blog site. You can see other AFS student blogs by going to http://afsgoabroad.blogspot.com/.

Hasta luego,

P.S. More photos are up: http://picasaweb.google.es/thomas.bryenton/

"It´s Been...One Week ♫"

2009-02-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

I have lived here for an entire week now, as of 1 PM on Saturday. To be honest, I´ve been through some difficult times, but I survived and I think I have some good experiences ahead. Not to say that everything will be "Peachy keen, jelly bean" from here on out, but at least I´ve gotten some of the worst out of the way. Recently I´ve been re-reading some of my AFS materials, and apparently most of my symptoms are normal...

The first thing that I want to mention seems really trivial, but it made me quite excited. I installed Google Chrome (an internet browser) and now my internet is nearly as fast as my Unitedstatesian connection. (Well, at least sometimes.) Now I CAN reasonably view YouTube videos and such. I feel goofy writing this, but it was significant because it reminded me of home. I have never seen a browser make such a difference, but I won´t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Something I´ve been wanting to mention: it´s really, really hot here. It can top 100 Fahrenheit easily in the afternoon, and there´s usually 40% humidity at least. It´s enough to make you bow down and worship every air conditioner you encounter.

Friday was my host mother´s cumpleaños (birthday party) so there was a nice family party. I got a compliment or two on my dancing, which I was both amused and flattered by, but I´m still no good at partner dancing. I guess that´s just something else I have the opportunity to improve here.

¡Chau-chau, nos vemos!

P.S. The song in the title has no special importance for me, it´s just that it popped into my head and I couldn´t get it out. Plus, it was an opportunity to use the musical note symbol ♫.

Clapping, Eating, Lifting, Speaking

2009-02-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

I´m not in the mood for the whole coherent-organizational-structure thing right now, so I´ll just use a bulleted list:

Did you know that, if a house doesn´t have a doorbell, the proper thing to do in Paraguay is clap (not knocking, calling out, etc.)? Quite interesting.
The food here is good, but -- to my taste buds -- it falls almost entirely into the category of comfort food, and most everything has a lot of salt and fat. Also, people here generally eat a LOT of meat.
One of my host brothers is really into lifting weights. As part of my effort to be as Paraguayan as possible, I do pretty much whatever he does, and that will include working out. That means going to el gimnasio five times per week, an hour a day. Will results follow? Possibly.
I have a separate website for my photos: http://picasaweb.google.es/thomas.bryenton/ . I´m not much of a photographer, but you can at least see the people I traveled with, my host brothers, where I live, etc. More will follow.
I´m having a good time, there´s currently no better place for me on earth, etc. But make no mistake, this incredibly challenging for me. Six months is a really long time to be away from literally everything you´re familiar with (family, music, culture, significant academics, CISV, etc.). It´s also really hard to lack the ability to express complicated feelings. And have I mentioned that six months is a really, really long time? ;) Anyway, on average I´m doing pretty well, but there are certainly plenty of rough patches.
The language continues to be my greatest source of difficulty. I´ve decided to spend more time practicing (by completing worksheets, writing sample sentences, reviewing textbooks, etc.) at home, and so far (i.e. since this morning...) it´s helping.

Much love,
T.

Todo Bien (All is Well)

2009-02-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

I am in Paraguay. I am happy and safely in good hands.

So, from the beginning. Four of the days since I left home have been travel / transition. After I finished my domestic flights to Miami, I had an Orientation with the ther US students traveling to Paraguay. It wasn´t a life-changing experience, but it certainly was refreshing to be with other people who had made this same decision that I had. The concept of high school foreign exchange is somewhat unusual, and Paraguay is even more so, so it was wonderful to be with like minded students. Together we flew to Santiago, Chile and then to Asunción, Paraguay, where we had another overnight orientation. Then, finally, we all went to our new homes with our host families.

My Paraguayan family is great, and we basically live in a tropical paradise. Once I figure out how to put up pictures, you'll see. I should note that this isn't the family I was originally matched with. They had to back out because of "economic difficulties," which I certainly can´t blame them for. Anyway, my new family: the father is a doctor (Papá), the mother owns a pharmacy (Mamá), and the three sons are students (Jose, Juan, and Federico, age 17, 15, and 12). They are very welcoming I´ve enjoyed my time here so far. A few blocks away from the house there is a soccer field, which I´m quite pleased with. Yesterday I spent a few hours playing soccer and throwing around a frisbee there. Maybe sometime soon I can get some of my vecinos (neighbors) to cotton on to Ultimate Frisbee and we can get a good game going. Some bad news: pianos are very, very rare in Paraguay. Oddly enough, organs are more common. (Considering my musical background, this is especially ironic, no?) But apparently there might be a piano in the Cultural Center in Luque, so perhaps I can use that.

The toughest thing so far has definitely been speaking Spanish. Paraguayan Spanish sounds completely different than anything I´ve previously studied. My difficulty can be summed up as follows: consonants are almost non-existent. Por ejemplo, the word agua is pronounced ah-wah. An equally sizable obstacle is that whenever someone sprinkles Guaraní into the conversation, the native language which everyone speaks, I´m utterly bewildered. But I´m already understanding more than when I came, and it´s just been two days since I got here.

Some parts of the culture have been frustrating for me, but there are several things I´m quite fond of. The main frustrating thing is that I have almost no independence -- everyone goes places with another person. It´s just not done to venture off on one´s own. But since I like my host brothers, this isn´t actually a problem. My favorite thing is that everyone I´ve met is incredibly tranquilo (laid-back). Constantly being surrounded by such peace of mind is really soothing, and makes for some good times. One other frustrating thing is that, socially, people spend much more time with people of their own gender. (Unless you´re officially dating someone, of course.) Since I have so many "gal pals" at home, this is strange for me. Of course, as AFS would have me remember, "It´s not good, it´s not bad, it´s just different." Hopefully I can continue to develop my "when in Rome" skills.

There is some pretty loud music downstairs, and the computer has crashed twice now, so I´m afraid my compositional and editorial skills are not quite up to par...I hope I haven´t written anything too ignorant or annoyed-sounding. Sorry about the length of this post -- in the future I´ll be more concise.

I miss you all! Even the sound of my stupid cellphone ringtone would be welcome. Six months is a long time, and this knowledge is actually harder than I expected. But I´m having a fantastic time here, and I´m sure that my exchange will prove to be magnífico. I think of everything back home often, but I´m doing just fine here. Love to all,
T.

Wait, remind me, where are you going again?

2008-10-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,
This is the blog I will use to chronicle my experiences in Paraguay next semester. In case you haven't heard, I am graduating in December and then from February to July I will be on a foreign exchange program with AFS in Paraguay. In Paraguay, I will be living with a host family, attending a school (although not for credit), soaking up the culture, improving my Spanish, and basically having the time of my life. Just so you know, I have some Spanish know-how already, so I'm not too worried about that adjustment. Also, one last thing -- if you didn't catch it, I based the title of this blog on "An American in Paris," except with Paraguay instead of Paris...I know, I know, pretty clever. ;)

Let me know if you have any questions -- I'm happy to discuss this with anyone.

Peace,
Thomas B.